Despite what Harry had expected, the yard outside the Weasleys' front door was nothing like outside the Dursleys' door. The Dursleys had a perfectly manicured lawn, perfectly trimmed hedges and perfectly weeded flower beds, all in perfect little rows. Harry ought to know, having done almost all that work himself -- though Aunt would never in a million years have told him it was perfect. The Dursleys' drive, where they parked their clean and shiny sedan, was asphalt, with only a couple tiny cracks in it, and the door was painted bright white, with a black "4" hanging just to the right of it on the front of the house.

The Weasleys' yard, however, was nothing like that. They didn't have a drive, nor even a car. They hadn't any hedges to block the view into the next yard; there was no "next yard" at all! No neighbors to peer over the fence and pry into their business, or to yell at The Boy for making too much noise while working outdoors in the early morning. Their front yard was part chicken coop, with several chickens scratching at the earth and squawking in their odd voices, and part odd collection of brooms and wellingtons.

Standing by the coop, Harry gaped around him, mouth hanging open, wondering what they were going to have to fix first, when Ron said, "Never seen a chicken before, Harry?"

He shook his head. "Only in a book," he admitted. At his primary school.

"Wish I had," Ron said. "These stink, and they'll claw your eyes out if you're not careful."

Ginny came up beside him and said, "Nuh-uh. Mum said that wasn't true. I asked. Mum says the chickens are doss-ull."

Ron puffed himself up. "Well, George told me they . . ." He trailed off and glared at his older brothers, who were giggling together by the corner of the house. "You said they'd claw my eyes out!" he yelled.

George snickered harder. "Don't believe everything--"

"--you hear, little brother," Fred finished his sentence for him.

"You oughtta know that by now."

Ron turned back to Harry and rested his head on his arms. Under his breath, he muttered, "I hate those two."

Harry bit his lip, not knowing what to say. Dudley often screamed that he hated Harry -- though what he said was, "I hate that freak!" -- and Harry did not doubt it for a second. But Ron didn't seem to really hate his brothers, not for true. He often played with them and laughed with them, especially when they were playing Gobstones or something like that. Dudley had never played with Harry or laughed with him, only laughed at him, and beat him up with his friends.

It was very confusing.

The next moment proved even more so, when Fred and George called for them from around the corner of the house, and Ron perked up with a grin and a laugh and ran alongside Harry to see what the twins were up to.

Harry rounded the corner of the building to see both boys up on brooms, a good ten feet above Harry's head. He stared up at them, wanting to be up there with them. Flying was the only time he felt free, and sure that no one and nothing could hurt him. When he was in his father's arms, he felt safe, but there was always that niggling fear that someone could still get to him.

Even if he wanted to be up in the air with the others, he could never ask for such a thing. He was not allowed to ask for anything. He was learning, slowly, that if someone -- like his father, or Mrs. Weasley -- offered him something, he could accept. But even that was oft times hard to remember, since Dudley had often played the trick on him of offering something -- food, a toy, a shirt that had no rips in it -- and then swiping the thing away when Harry said yes. He would then run to his parents and tell them that Harry was trying to steal his stuff.

Harry had learned his lessons very well, though from the beatings he still got, until his father came, no one would have known.

Ron could ask, though. Obviously. He jumped up and down, hands in the air as if he could catch one of his brothers if he leapt high enough. "I wanna play! I'll be Chaser, okay? Okay, George? I can be Chaser, right?"

"I dunno, Ronniekins. Chaser?" one of the twins said and grinned, turning to the other. "He'd make a better Bludger, wouldn't he?"

"Right you are," said the other, who Harry was pretty sure was George, really. "The way he knocks into things."

"You want to be a Bludger?" They both asked Ron at the same time.

"No! That's stupid. I wanna be Chaser!"

The argument went on a few more minutes, until Ginny shouted that she would be a Bludger, and the boys all stopped fighting, looking horrified by her suggestion. Harry didn't really understand the situation. Nobody could be a Bludger, he didn't think, 'cause that was the ball the Beaters hit. Wasn't it?

Maybe he had it all wrong. It wouldn't be the first time.

Regardless, they were all up on brooms a few minutes after that, with no one being a Bludger, not even Ginny. The pitch was no more than a field with a goal post at either end, but Harry found it strangely beautiful despite the lack of precision and straight rows of flowers. Or maybe because of that lack.

"It's all hid from the Muggles," Fred said, as if that made sense to Harry.

"Dad's real careful about that," added George, kicking off into the air again.

"They live over there, Muggles do," Fred told him, pointing off in the distance where Harry could just see the tip of a church spire.

"And they don't even know we're here!"

They played for a good long time, everyone alternately playing Chaser or Beater, and only when they were all sweaty and the score was around a million points for each team -- as neither had a Keeper or Seeker -- did they end the game.

"Mum said to show Harry the pumpkins," said Ron as they put up the brooms. The twins suddenly remembered they had somewhere else to be, but when they tried to escape the yard, a call from their mother brought them back to Ron, Ginny, and Harry, and a reluctant trip to the pumpkin patch.

The garden was smaller by far than Hagrid's, but the pumpkins were large and very round, and were just turning orange. Ron walked through the rows, pointing out the ones he had planted himself, as Ginny did the same. Harry said they looked good.

"You ever planted anything?" Ron asked him.

He nodded. Every spring. Aunt Petunia liked annuals as well as perennials, and so every spring and summer, he was on his knees in the dirt, mulching, hoeing, weeding, watering, and all the rest. He knew how to plant things, and how to make sure they were properly taken care of after that. Many of his early beatings were earned while learning this skill.

"What?" Ron asked.

"Daffodils," Harry replied. "Roses, delphiniums, peonies, daisies, nemesia, geraniums, snapdragons--"

"Whoa there, boy-o," said Fred, leaning over the little fence meant to keep rabbits and deer and such out; Harry thought it was too short for the latter, and the spacing too wide for the former. But maybe there was something different about growing things way out here in the country, that people in Little Whinging knew nothing about. Something magic.

Harry stopped his recitation, having not gotten half way through yet, and said, "Sorry, Fred."

"'S'okay. Did you really plant all that stuff?"

"Yes."

"How come?" asked Ron. "Did your Dad make you?"

Harry shook his head. "No. The Dursleys."

The other children exchanged a silent look, and Harry wondered why.

"How come?" Ron asked, and then one of the twins shoved him, hard enough so he fell in the dirt. "Ow! Geroff!"

"You're not s'posed to--"

"--Ask him about that lot, Ronniekins. When'll you--"

"--Learn to keep your gob shut?"

"Shut up! I didn't mean it!" Ron yelled, and looked like he might cry.

Harry didn't understand why, since the push had not been that hard, and Ron wasn't bleeding or anything. But he did understand big kids pushing little kids around, and he moved suddenly, swiftly, to place himself in between Ron and his brothers. Just because no one had ever stuck up for him against Dudley, didn't mean he couldn't stick up for others. "Leave him alone," he said in a low, quiet voice. His hands were curled into fists at his sides.

"Looka the fierce, little fighter," said Fred. His red eyebrows were hidden under his fringe they had climbed so high. He didn't look angry, but surprised.

"Sticking up for ickle Ronnikins," added George, who also appeared startled, but with a tiny, almost approving, smile.

"Who woulda thought?"

Harry didn't say anything, just lifted his chin a fraction higher. He couldn't help but swallow hard, though. Both of them were far bigger than him, and outnumbered him besides.

Fred gave a laugh. "Merlin, Harry, don't worry on 'bout it."

"We wouldn't ever really hurt him," George said.

"He's our brother, for Merlin's sake."

Harry nodded, but not like it meant anything. Brothers, he figured, could turn on you as quick as cousins.

George shook his head with a sigh. "Oh, c'mon, Ronnie. Stop your whinging."

"We're sorry, all right? Quit it or--"

"Mum'll hear and call us all in."

Ron had already climbed to his feet and now pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes for a second, to wipe away the tears which had barely had time to collect, never mind fall. "S'all right," he said as he turned to Harry and grinned a sudden gap-toothed grin. "I'm all right. You really stood up to 'em for me. Ta, Harry."

With another nod, Harry smiled back a bit, but gave the twins a wary look over Ron's shoulder. He didn't know why Fred had knocked Ron down, but he would keep an eye on them from now on.

"Boys!" a call came from the front of the house. "Ginny! Come here, please!"

"What d'you figure she wants now?" George grumbled.

Fred kicked a stone with a scuffed trainer. "Probably wants to know why were not done thinning the pumpkin patch yet."

George gave his twin a sly smile. "Maybe we can--"

Fred nodded as he continued their thought, "--Make out for the orchard--"

"--Before she gets wise to us?"

"Race ya!" they called to each simultaneously. Ron, Ginny and Harry watched them dart to the other side of the house and away towards the nearby orchard.

"C'mon," Ron said as he glared after them. "They might get away with ducking out, but we won't." He trudged around to where their mother had been calling.

"Boys!" she was yelling again, just as they rounded the corner. "Gin-- Oh! There you are. Come here, Harry dear. Your father is Flooing back to Hogwarts for the afternoon and would like to say goodbye."

Harry froze in his tracks. He'd forgotten. Father had told him that he would be here for the afternoon without Father, and he had forgotten. He didn't want to say goodbye. Maybe, if he didn't say goodbye, Father wouldn't leave. . . .

But he had been given a direct order, so he moved closer to the door, where Mrs. Weasley was standing.

"That's a dear," Mrs. Weasley cooed, smiling down at him. Then she cocked her head slightly and peered at Ron. "Where have your brothers gone, Ronnie?"

Ron tried a shrug and a look down at his trainers in silence, but Mrs. Weasley wasn't buying it. "It's hardly your fault they're made themselves scarce, Ronnie; just tell me where they went off to."

"The orchard," Ginny piped up, and Harry gaped at her. He could not abide tattlers. Dudley was the worst he'd ever met, of course, but tattlers of any stripe were horrifying to him.

"Thank you, Ginny sweetie. Come on in, all of you. I have lunch ready. Harry, your father is in the sitting room."

Sidestepping Ginny-the-Tattler, even as Ron stuck his tongue out at her, and she reciprocated, Harry mumbled a, "Thank you, ma'am," to Mrs. Weasley and darted into the house. He found the sitting room again, no problem, and his father, too.

Father!" he cried, and ran at him, launching himself into his father's arms as soon as he was close enough to do so. Father, fortunately, caught him and held him close. Holding Harry against his chest, with one hand behind Harry's head, he sat down in a soft, patterned chair to the side of the fireplace, with Harry straddling his knees.

"What's wrong, Harry? Did something happen? Are you hurt?"

Harry shook his head and pressed his face into the crook of his father's shoulder, where it met his neck. "No, Father," he said in a low voice. "Please, don't go."

Father made a soft sighing sound. "I must," he said. "I have work to do for my classes, and you need to get used to being here without me."

Harry shook his head again, silently.

"Yes, Harry. I have to go now."

Harry held him just a bit tighter.

Father sighed and squeezed Harry back, but his voice was tinged with sadness as he spoke. "Please, son. I promise to return in . . . in just four hours, all right? I'm sure Mrs. Weasley will give you some sort of timer, if you ask her. But we have to do this. I need to work, and you need to make new friends, and to learn your lessons so you'll be ready for Hogwarts in a few years. You want to learn as much as you can, don't you?"

Harry wanted to tell him about Ron hating his brothers, and how Fred was a bully just like Dudley, except not really, since he seemed truly sorry afterwards, and how Ginny was a tattler who would get Harry into trouble plenty, he knew, and he wanted to beg his father to let him go home with him. But Father had asked a direct question, and he knew he was being a clingy baby. And he was no baby.

He loosened his grip and slipped out of his father's arms. "Yes, sir," he said, looking down. "Sorry, sir."

"Look at me, Harry."

Harry made himself look up into his father's face, expecting to see disappointment, or worse. But he didn't. Father merely shook his head a little with a fond glimmer in the depths of his dark eyes. "What are you to call me?"

Harry smiled back. A little. "Father." He shifted from one foot to the other. "Sorry, Father."

Father's eyes wrinkled at the corners, the way Harry knew his smile deepened. "Don't be. This situation is strange for both of us, I daresay. Neither of us has had anyone else we cared for so dearly before that we would fear missing them so much in just four hours."

"I'm not afraid," Harry burst out, before he could think.

"No?" Father's lips twisted up briefly at the corners. "I am."

"You?"

"Yes, me. I will miss you while I'm at home correcting abominable essays written by cretins or the worst kind, when I'd far rather be with you, reading one of our stories or playing chess or taking a walk in the orchard together. But those essays must be done." Another twist of those thin lips. "And I fear to start them."

To his chagrin, Harry knew he would rather be here than at Hogwarts, if Father was only going to correct essays and not read with him and all that.

"Like homework," Harry said with a grimace.

"Exactly like." Father opened his arms, and Harry stepped into another hug, this one not as frantic as the last. This time, Harry could breathe. "But I will come get you when I finish, and you will have fun here until I do. I believe Mrs. Weasley has lunch ready for you, too."

"Yeah, I guess so."

Father gave a soft chuckle and scolded lightly, "Mind your manners, child. I'll be back before you know it. Come now," he said, standing up and taking Harry's hand. He led Harry back towards the kitchen and big dining table that could seat most of Slytherin House, probably. In the kitchen sink, pots were washing themselves, and with a sudden spray of water, rinsing themselves, too. He wondered if they had House Elves here, but they must be invisible, if so.

Mrs. Weasley approached them with a plate and a bowl. "Harry dear, sit down right there, there's a boy. Here's tomato soup and sandwiches for lunch. She placed the bowl of creamy red soup and a plate with two ham and cheese sandwiches in front of Harry, then waved her wand to make a spoon and a glass of milk appear. Harry gawked at the display, but then tucked into his meal -- everyone else was already doing so; Ron was almost done with his second sandwich, in fact, just cramming it into his mouth.

"He'll be fine, Severus," Mrs. Weasley said. "Don't worry about a thing."

Father gave her one of his hard looks, like the ones he gave Headmaster Dumbledore sometimes, but she just laughed and waved him away before she turned back to the table.

"Good day," Father said. "Remember your manners as a guest, Harry." And then he was gone, and a hole opened up in Harry's chest a mile wide. Father had promised to come back, though, which was the only reason Harry wasn't chasing after him right now and tearing through the Floo to find him and hold onto him and never let go.

He had promised.