She laughed outright at that and urged him to continue, so he did. "He had to get it surgically removed in a muggle hospital. Hagrid left him with it. Any time Dudley sees a wizard now, he tries to cover his bottom with his hands to prevent it happening again. Only problem is that his bottom is much too big that he couldn't possibly cover the whole thing. But anyway, Hagrid whisked me away and took me to Diagon Alley to go shopping for my school supplies. And he bought me my first birthday present, Hedwig. I guess that's another reason why I'm so closed to her. She was the first gift I ever remember receiving."
Ginny reached a hand out to his knee and squeezed it reassuringly. "Hagrid was great. The only thing he forgot to do was explain to me how to get onto Platform 9 ¾. But it was because of that mistake that I met your family, so I can't really hold it against him."
"I remember that," Ginny volunteered. "You were so shy, asking my mum how to get through. I remember wondering to myself why you were there all alone and where your family was. I thought you were the cutest thing." They both blushed faintly, but she continued without interruption. "Then my brothers told me who you were, and it was all over for me. I was already quite taken with you, but to hear that you were the Harry Potter, that shy little boy who had asked my mum for help. I felt so bad that you were all alone, and I wished that you would come back out so I could have been the one to wish you off. I thought that everyone deserved to be wished off by someone when they get on the train."
"I remember you, running after the train on the platform, laughing and crying as the twins told you they'd send you a toilet seat." They both chuckled at the memory. "Did you know they sent me a toilet seat at the end of the year when I was in the Hospital Wing, after the ordeal with the Sorcerer's Stone?"
"You're kidding?" she asked, erupting into peals of laughter.
"Nope," he replied honestly. "Dumbledore told me so when I woke up. He said that Madame Pomfrey confiscated it because she thought it wasn't very hygienic." They both got a good laugh out of that. "When I saw you running after the train, I remember wishing that I had someone like that, someone who would miss me that I could write to."
"How ironic, that we were both wishing for such similar things," she stated.
"Yep, life can be funny that way," Harry agreed.
"Why did you need to write the twins?" Ginny asked abruptly. He cocked an eyebrow at the sudden change of topic. "I meant to ask you last night," she explained. "When you brought up the twins sending you a toilet seat, it popped back into my mind."
"Ah," he said, mulling over something. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to tell you. This doesn't go beyond us though, right?" She nodded to him, so he continued, "Officially, it was just a reply about their shop. They sent me an update on their first month of business yesterday morning. They actually seem to have done really well, so I wanted to offer my congratulations first and foremost."
"But the real meat of the letter had nothing to do with the shop," Ginny continued.
"I wouldn't say it had nothing to do with it," Harry replied mysteriously. "I shared a business proposition with them. It's not in their usual line of work, but it's actually not that far off either."
"And what did that entail?" she prodded, leaning forward eagerly.
"Nosy little bugger, aren't you?" he teased. She slapped his arm playfully in reply. He rubbed the spot gingerly playing up his injury. "Ouch. You don't have to be so violent." When she raised her arm again he held up his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright, I'll get on with it, just don't hit me again." She laughed appreciatively, and he continued.
"The idea came to me after a conversation I had with Dumbledore. He mentioned that the twins had been trying to get into the Order ever since they left school last Spring, but that he hadn't let them in yet. He said he's reluctant to let them in when they're still so young. When I was leaving his office, I thought to myself that even though the twins can be really immature, that they're really incredibly intelligent. If pushed in the right direction they could be a huge help to the war effort."
"So because Dumbledore and the Order are ignoring them, you're going to give them that push," Ginny stated more than asked.
"Exactly," Harry smiled at her. "I suggested that they put their creative genius to work creating items that could be useful for the Order. If their invisibility hats could be modified to make the whole body disappear, for example, that could be a huge advantage. Also, if they were able to create something similar to a firework, only instead of just shooting out colored lights, if they could shoot out spells, you could take out a room full of Death Eaters without putting anyone at risk."
"Those are some really good ideas," Ginny said approvingly.
"Thank you," Harry replied gratefully. "I figured that would be a decent start for them. And once they get into the idea, I'm sure they'll come up with some pretty useful inventions on their own. They could use their joke shop as a front of sorts. They'd still sell their existing product line, but instead of inventing new pranks, they could devote their time to coming up with items for the Order. And once they presented a couple of these items to members of the Order…."
"They'd have no choice but to let them in," Ginny finished for him.
"Exactly," Harry said brightly.
"That's brilliant, Harry."
"Nah, that was the easy part. The twins are the ones who will be stuck with the dirty work of actually creating this stuff," Harry explained.
"Don't sell yourself short, Harry," Ginny insisted. "You may not be the one doing the actual inventing, but without you, the idea may never have even come up."
"What do you say we head over to my office and start your training early today?" Harry asked suddenly. "We're already together and alone, so we won't need to make any excuses to anybody. On second thought, we can just do it in here today, then meet everybody for lunch."
"Sounds good, Harry," she replied, shaking her head at his inability to take a compliment.
Normally Harry would have spent this time training himself, but he decided that it wouldn't hurt to break up the monotony of his schedule a little bit. They wanted to keep these sessions secret, so if anyone wised up to the fact that the two of them were always missing at the same time on certain days out of the week, they might get suspicious. Then again, they were probably more likely to think them snogging in a broom cupboard than training to be animagi, but that was beside the point.
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