"What the hell did you do?" Hermione and Ginny screamed at Fred and George. Ron merely looked on in horror.
It was the beginning of July and they had all been staying at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, for a couple of weeks. Ron and Hermione wanted to know what was going on in the nightly Order meetings but were starting to accept it wasn't possible so they had stayed upstairs while Ginny and the twins had gone downstairs to spy.
It had only been a few minutes later when they'd heard a massive explosion, a series of tortured screams and then…nothing. Ron and Hermione had grabbed their wands and raced downstairs, envisaging a deatheater attack at the very least. They weren't anywhere near as brave as Harry but they were determined to do whatever they could to help defend their friends and family.
What they found when they got downstairs, though was nothing like what they had expected. The door to the basement kitchen was blown off its hinges and smoke was billowing out through the door. Fred and George were standing in mute horror and Ginny was glaring at them, holding her wand menacingly. The smoke began to clear so Ron and Hermione went to see what the problem was.
Ron nearly fainted and Hermione screamed. Where there had presumably, moments before, been a roomful of adults discussing very important matters there was now a mob of toddlers causing utter mayhem. The kitchen was in the basement and only very basically equipped but chaos still reigned supreme. Much to the on looking Kreacher's horror the 20 toddlers were tearing it apart.
A few were just screaming because they'd hurt themselves falling off their chairs when they turned from an adult to a child. Some had climbed onto the table and were tearing or chewing up what were presumably important Order documents. Some were standing around sobbing because they couldn't see their mummies and daddies and the rest had raided the cool box and the cupboards and were throwing food around and banging pots and pans.
"I repeat," Hermione snarled, advancing dangerously on the twins. "What. Did. You. Do?"
"I-I don't know," Fred confessed. "This wasn't supposed to happen."
The hand in which Hermione was still holding her wand twitched, going up and down, as though she was physically forcing herself to go against her body's compulsion to curse the twins. "What was supposed to happen?" she asked through gritted teeth.
"When we activated our device 20 tiny golems, one for each person in the meeting, were supposed to slide under the door, record what's going on in the kitchen and then come back out before they do," George said.
"Get. Out. Of. My. Sight," Hermione ordered, looking like she was barely restraining herself from throwing down her wand and punching the twins in the face. Looking relieved to be escaping the chaos but also faintly guilty that they were just leaving the others to deal with it, Fred and George slunk off upstairs. "God, this is why I've never liked those two," Hermione said to Ron and Ginny, a faint note of hysteria in her voice. "They never think things through! I'm going to kill them one of these days."
"If you hold off mum will definitely do it for you when she gets back to normal," Ron said.
"But how is she going to get back to normal?" Ginny asked. "If not even the twins know what happened we have no idea how to reverse it. And how the hell are we going to take care of 20 little kids while we figure it out?"
"What do you mean we're taking care of them?" Ron asked, alarmed.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Use your brain, Ronald. The house is under fildieus charm so nobody Professor Dumbledore hasn't already given access to can come in and it's not like he can give anyone access now. We can't exactly go outside with 20 infants, either. No, Ginny's right I'm afraid. We're on our own. We're going to have to figure this out ourselves."
"I suppose it's too much to ask that they've just been physically deaged, that they still have their adult minds and memories?" Ginny asked.
"Do you really think they'd be acting like this if they were mentally still adults?" Hermione asked. "No, we have 20 actual infants on our hands. When I've calmed down a bit, when I don't think I'll kill them on sight I'll go and see the twins and demand all their research. Perhaps I'll be able to figure something out from that. In the mean time, though we have to do something about the kids?"
"Like what?" Ron asked fearfully. To Hermione's surprise, this time Ginny was nodding in agreement with her brother. "We're the youngest, for Merlin's sake. What are we supposed to know about little kids?"
Exasperated but still apprehensive herself Hermione ventured into the kitchen and at least tried to put her limited babysitting experience to good use. She was relieved to note that when they were deaged the clothes the Order members had been wearing had shrunk as well so the kids had at least one set of proper clothes but she had a feeling that they were going to need many more baby supplies before all this was over.
"Hi!" she said loudly, pasting a big, fake smile on her face.
The kids who had been crying immediately shrank back in fear at the sound of Hermione's voice but it took her a few tries to get the attention of the ones on the table and the ones raiding the cupboards. Furiously, Hermione gestured at Ron and Ginny to lift the kids off the table before they got hurt as well. "I want mummy!" a little girl whose candy pink hair revealed her to be Nymphadora Tonks.
"Don't be afraid!" Hermione said. "You're all safe here. Your mummies and daddies sent you here for a bit of a vacation so you'll have lots of other kids to play with instead of being stuck at home doing boring grownup stuff."
"Mummy and daddy don't want me anymore!" another little girl wailed.
"Yes they do!" Hermione exclaimed. "You'll see them again, soon I promise. For now, though you're all going to stay here and play with me and my friends. You can call me Mione and this is Ron and Ginny."
It took a long time but eventually the trio managed to get all 20 toddlers to sleep in the five cleanest bedrooms, four in each room. They had no idea whether the kids had eaten before they were deaged, or even whether a meal before they were deaged would still sustain them as kids, so they made sure each child had some honey on toast. It wasn't much but it was most readily available in the Order's kitchen and would at least tide everyone over until Hermione, Ron and Ginny figured out what they were going to do.
It was pretty obvious that they couldn't stay here. The trio had a tough time corralling all 20 toddlers and this was at a stage when the kids were too terrified to disobey them. Once the kids got more comfortable around them it would be too hard to keep them safe in a house filled with all sorts of horrible dark magic. The problem was they had no idea where they could go. Hermione was adamant that even if they left Grimmauld Place they couldn't tell anyone about this. "It'll be a disaster if You-Know-Who catches wind of a toddler sized Professor Dumbledore and if the Ministry finds out about this they'll all be in trouble for joining the Order at the very least," she pointed out.
"True," Ron admitted reluctantly. "We better get this sorted out quickly then because I hate to think what will happen if the wizarding world realize that Professor Dumbledore and McGonagall are missing."
"Truthfully I'm more worried about what will happen if people realise Fleur's missing," Ginny said. "I'm pretty sure I heard someone say her father's third-in-charge of the French Ministry. Her disappearing in Britain could cause an international incident."
"I hate to say it but I don't think we have a choice," Hermione said. "I think all we can do is hope that we can get everyone restored to their proper age and hope they can all explain their disappearances when everything is sorted out."
"What are we going to do in the mean time?" Ginny asked.
"Well presumably the first thing we need is supplies," a voice said from behind them.
Hermione, Ron and Ginny whirled around only to see the shamefaced twins slinking back into the room. "Decided to show your faces, did you?" Ron sneered. "This is all your fault. I hope you know that."
"We do," Fred said. "And we'll accept whatever punishment mum comes up with when this is all over. In the mean time we want to help deal with the situation that we caused. We have some money so, Hermione, if you'll make a list of what supplies we need we'll go first thing in the morning."
"How do you have so much money?" Ginny asked.
"Doesn't matter," George said. "We're rethinking our plans now. It's all perfectly legal, though." He handed a stack of parchments to Hermione. "These are all our notes on the golems. We can't figure out where we went wrong. Hopefully you can."
"You better hope so," Hermione said coldly.
"We don't know how long this is going to go on for so in the interest of saving a bit of money perhaps you could go to the Burrow and look for supplies in the attic," Ginny suggested. "I know mum kept most of our baby stuff."
"The Burrow!" Ron said. "Perhaps we could take the kids there."
Hermione shook her head, vetoing the plan. "Not a good idea. Professor Dumbledore made your family move in here because he thought that it's too visible a target for deatheaters, remember? It might be okay if it were just the five of us but we'd never be able to escape if we were looking after 20 children when an attack happened. Plus, after Hogwarts, it'll be the first place people look when they realise everyone's missing."
"And the Weasleys have lived there all their lives," Ginny added. "It's pretty obvious that Bill and Charlie don't recognise mum and dad as toddlers so they'd be confused and scared about why they were at home without their parents and with lots of strangers."
"All right, all right it was just an idea," Ron huffed.
"What about Harry?" George suggested.
"What about him?" Hermione asked, not getting what George was suggesting. "And remember that Professor Dumbledore said it was too dangerous for him to be anywhere other than his aunt and uncle's house."
"I think circumstances have changed now, Hermione," Ginny said. "As much as I hate to say it George is right. Remember that even stuck at his aunt's place Harry still had an Order member or two guarding him at all times. There's nobody to protect him now so he may as well leave."
"And you can tell from his letters that he's already mad at us," Ron said. "Think of how much worse it'll be if we keep this from him."
"Plus Harry's the last member of an Ancient and Nobel House," Fred added. "He'll probably have some place we can all go."
"Ancient and Nobel House?" Hermione asked.
Ginny shook her head. "Doesn't matter at the moment. Just remember that even if pureblood politics aren't important to our family it doesn't mean we don't know about them. What Fred's trying to say in his roundabout way is that Harry probably owns a big enough, safe enough place we can go. It'll just be a matter of him going to Gringotts to find out where it is."
After a long moment Hermione, who all the Weasleys had automatically assumed was in charge of the situation, nodded. She looked at the twins. "Okay, I'll write you a letter to Harry and you two will take it to him first thing in the morning. See if you can do that without messing it up!"
Shamefaced, the twins turned away again but Hermione, Ron and Ginny all felt that they deserved whatever guilt they were feeling. They had caused this situation and things were going to get a lot worse before they got better.
Just so you know the list of people who have been deaged are:
Albus Dumbledore
Aberforth Dumbledore
Minerva McGonagall
Severus Snape
Sirius Black
Remus Lupin
Molly Weasley
Arthur Weasley
Bill Weasley
Charlie Weasley
Alastor Moody
Fleur Delacour
Mundungus Fletcher
Arabella Figg
Kingsley Shackelbolt
Nymphadora Tonks
Emmeline Vance
Hestia Jones
Elphias Doge
Dedalus Diggle