"Brown Sheep" of the Family

n. Weasley's red hair, The.

Hair of a 'violent' or 'fierce' red-orange color, characteristic of the Weasley wizarding family. Often used as a branding mark by stuck-up buggers e.g. Draco Malfoy. "My father told me that all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford." - Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

*-*-*

The Christmas vacations were always a wonderful time of year at Hogwarts. The grounds were covered in a delicate snow, the castle was decked out in decorations to celebrate the Yule season and any passing Slytherin would vomit at the sheer amount of red in the Gryffindor common room, were they to catch a glimpse of it. Honestly, it was red enough in there to drive any reasonable snake insane, but around Christmas it was simply bloody everywhere.

Well, except for one bed of the fifth-year girls' dormitory. Ginny Weasley shifted in her sleep, having dreams about basilisks wearing bunny ears (she had misunderstood that her roommates had said 'rabid,' not 'rabbit' when they stayed up all night telling ghost stories from restlessness) and mumbling to herself. Then she heard 3 voices giggling around her bed.

Thinking that she had been talking in her sleep again and Sam, Sandra, and Zaranai were giggling at that, Ginny didn't bother to wake up properly. "Bugger off," she grumbled, rolling over and pulling up her blankets.

"We're not laughing about the evil bunny-snake of doom, dear." American accent. Meaningless nickname of affection. Right. Zaranai.

"Bugger off anyway." Ginny glared at her pillow, which was blocking her vision of her roommates. If she didn't get back to sleep soon she never would. "I need my sleep to not strangle any first-years at breakfast, the little terrors. I'm not a kind drowsy person."

"We're aware o' that, Gin." Sandra's solid accent turned the name into something closer to 'Geen.' "Ye might want t' see what we're really laughin' at."

Grumbling about grinchly pests, Ginny reluctantly sat up but didn't see anything wrong. Three Gryffindor girls standing around her bed-Sam and Sandra to her right, Zaranai to her left-waking her up the day after Boxing Day when she should be asleep. Circular dormitory with one unoccupied bed that had collected an assortment of junk from the girls whose parents hadn't pulled them out of school. A few pieces of wrapping paper the house elves had missed after giving up on the hopeless room. Gifts stacked on bedside tables out of the way of the older junk's conquest of the dorm. Nothing at all out of the ordinary for four teenage girls. "Alright, what's so important?"

Sam, standing closer to Ginny, didn't say a word but simply reached out and grasped a piece of Ginny's hair near the front of her face and held it in front of her eyes. Sam was trying her hardest to suppress a grin and failing miserably, but so were the other two fully-awake girls. Their task became harder as Ginny's eyes widened in raw shock.

*-*-*

Deep in the Forbidden Forest, a small flock of birds received a rather terrible shock as well when an ear-piercing scream rang out from the general direction of the castle. In all truth, they were a bit too far away to know where the castle was for certain. They just knew that whatever made that noise was scary and very confused as to whether it should be afraid or furious, settling on an odd mixture of the two.

Below them, a cat that had been putting much effort into climbing the birds' tree was slightly less startled, and more disappointed as the birds flew away. Perhaps it would have birds for breakfast another day.

Below the cat, a rusting sentient car snickered metallically. It had been cheering for the birds anyway, and now it would get to see the cat try to climb back down the tree, which never worked out but still proved to be an amusing show.

*-*-*

Back in Gryffindor tower, Ginny was not amused. "MY HAIR!!" she shrieked, still quite loud enough to encourage the birds to keep running. "WHAT'S HAPPENED TO MY HAIR?!" She came slightly back to her senses then, at least enough to realize her friends-soon to become ex-friends- were laughing at her hysteria. "You lot had something to do with this," She muttered dangerously, eyes narrowing and making her look very much like her mother. "I know you did. You used some Muggle trick against me."

"Oi, now." Sam had let go of Ginny's hair when its owner snatched it out of her hand. "None of us are Muggle-born."

"Yeah," Zaranai said with a Cheshire cat grin. "We're just half-blood is all. And we didn't do anything to you, Muggle or magic."

"Mebbe yer hair is going for an..." Sandra reconsidered her words as she looked at the medium-brown lock held in Ginny's hand, but she'd gone too far to stop now. "Earthy look?"

Zaranai grinned at Sandra then. "Good one, hon. Very creative."

"Thankee. I learned how t' be a true smartass from you."

"Excuse me." Ginny was glaring at the wall in front of her now. "I am the victim here. Please stop flirting over my head."

"Yes, mistress." Sam and Sandra were both amazed by the resilience of Zaranai's facial expressions; the grin stayed intact even under Ginny's best Molly Weasley Death Glare of Doom. Yes, they liked the phrase 'of doom.' "What? I am only trying to lighten the mood. Your hair darkening shouldn't darken the morning as well."

"You have something very wrong with you, Zii." Ginny's expression hadn't changed either. "But before we can fix your problems we need to fix this, now don't we."

"What is with you people? Get out of my way!" Hermione Granger shoved past a crowd of girls who had gathered at the doorway into Ginny, Sam, Sandra, and Zaranai's dormitory. Between Zaranai's attempts at distraction and Ginny's hysteria the crowd had been ignored, but that was a miracle. Most were chattering about what could have made the youngest Weasley scream so loud this early in the morning on a holiday. Such things were unheard of.

"Ye migh' not want t' see this, Hermioneh." Sandra blocked the prefects' way. "Ye could die o' shock."

"Move, I need to see what's wrong." She half-heartedly indicated her prefect badge, which seemed to be permanently attached to her robes. "It's my duty and all that other rot."

"It's yer funeral." Sandra stepped aside and Hermione gaped openmouthed at what she saw.

"Ginny? What happened to your hair?" Hermione walked toward Ginny's bed and Zaranai walked past her to close the door, yelling at the gathered students to shove off.

"That's what I want to know. I accused Zii and the twins, but they deny everything." Sam and Sandra weren't really related at all, but they looked very similar so rumors ran rampant that they were actually twins separated at birth, despite being born in different countries. The name stuck, sadly enough, but the girls actually seemed to like their title.

"Because we didn't do anything." Sam narrowed her eyes at Ginny for a moment then turned to Hermione to explain. "Zii, Sandra, and I woke up because we heard one of the windows slam. Ginny here must be a heavy sleeper; she didn't stir at all. We checked to see if she was alright, and her hair was like that when we opened the curtains. No idea what coulda done it."

"And before you even say it, dear, it is not a Muggle trick." Zaranai came back to her earlier position by Ginny's bed, now standing next to Hermione. "I don't know a single Muggle way to change hair color that doesn't require the person being awake or discoloring any fabric nearby too. Your pillow case and pajamas are fine, so it must have been magic."

Sam looked up at Hermione hopefully. "Do you know of any spells that could do this? Or how to reverse them?"

"There's probably about twenty different ways that I could name off the top of my head with no way to tell one from the other." Hermione sounded disheartened by her lack of knowledge. "And you can't reverse a spell without knowing what it was in the first place."

A collective defeated sigh rose up from all five girls. A moment later, Sam's face lit up. "Couldn't you use one of those to turn it back?"

"Yes," Ginny encouraged, "try that."

"You have a point." Hermione took out her wand and aimed it at Ginny's head. "Hold still, Gin. Heaven knows what this would do to the linens. Coba rubicundus!" She waved her wand with a flourish.

The ball of red light that flew from Hermione's wand flew straight at Ginny, directly on course for its target, but the gathered group of girls wasn't expecting what happened upon contact.

'KWANG!' The ball of light reflected off of Ginny as thought it had been struck by a bat, turning green as it went, and flew straight into Sandra's unsuspecting face.

"Oh..." Sandra moaned from the ground as Sam tried to help her up. "Oh, my nose..."

"Okay, then. Bad idea." Zaranai rushed around the bed to see Sandra better. "Are you all right, hon?"

"Aye... I'm fine; it's not broken. But, ugh, it burns." Sandra looked up at Sam and Zaranai. "Can ye see anything wrong with it?"

"Not with your nose," Sam said hesitantly, "But your eyes are very... different."

"There must be some charm on the spell to protect it," Hermione muttered more to herself than anyone else then noticed the change in Sandra's features. "Your eyes look like Madam Hooch's."

Sandra's new yellow hawk-eyes went wide and a grin spread across her face. "Well, then I'm really all right."

"Anyway," Ginny said darkly as she rose to her feet, "We need to go find who did this and beat them into un-'did'ing it. I don't feel like a Weasley without the hair that goes with the name."

"Right." Hermione's tone went business-like. "You said your window slammed so maybe whoever it was is on the grounds. Let's go."

*-*-*

After the others managed to persuade Sandra into changing her eyes back ("you wouldn't be my 'twin' anymore!") they walked out the large double doors of the main entrance. A few students were already scattered about the grounds making snowmen, having snowball fights, and playing with new Christmas gifts.

Ron and Harry were a small distance from the castle, hastily building up a snowman to hide the broomstick leaning against it from the castle doors. Ron was too busy packing snow onto the snowman's waist to notice the five girls bursting out of the castle. Harry, however, saw them and smacked Ron on the back of the head.

"Look at that! I didn't believe you when you said you actually did it, but you did. Gin's hair looks so much darker now." Harry tilted his head, appraising the youngest Weasley. "Y'know, it works for her."

"Shut up! She'll kill me if she finds out I did it. And you." Harry looked taken aback.

"Why would she kill me for what you did?"

"Because it was your broom, mate, and you dared me to do it, and you found the spells to do it with. All I did was carry out your dirty work." Ron held up three fingers on one hand and one on the other. "Looks like it was more you than me."

*-*-*

Even across what was left of the distance between the girls and the boys, Hermione could sense Ron's guilt. She could read that boy like a billboard - clearly, but only from great distances. How else could she miss his obsession for her? "Gin. Ronald did it."

Ginny looked from her brother to Hermione and back. Hermione only used Ron's full name when she was accusing him of something she was already certain of or during one of their frequent rows. "Really? How can you be sure?"

"I just am." And she set off on a description of how he could have pulled it off.

*-*-*

"Hermione knows." Ron stared wide-eyed at the approaching group of girls.

"How can you know that?" Harry looked at the group as well, but couldn't see that anything had changed from when they came through the doors.

"I just do." He could read her like a billboard as well, but it was more as though he needed glasses. From time to time he would manage to squint correctly to see the message, but still only from great distances. How else could he miss her obsession for him?

*-*-*

"Off with his head!" All four girls of Muggle lineage (Hermione, Zaranai, Sam, and Sandra) sounded the battle cry as they charged toward Ron and Harry. Ginny, however, outran them all, wielding a tightly-packed iceball in each hand.

"RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY! I WILL NOT REST UNTIL YOU TASTE MY ICY WRATH!!" Ginny's rage and speed made it seem as though her hair was fire again, even if it was a brown fire. Ron's sense of reading people managed to squint correctly again.

"Run. Run fast."