"Alecto!" Maisie's voice floated up the stairs. "It's almost time for the sitter to arrive. Get ready to come down!"

Sitting on the floor of her bedroom, Alecto ignored her caretaker and continued playing with her rice. Rice made a funny sound when scraped together. It also was fun to place grains on top of one another until they all toppled over, making a mess on the carpet. Rice was hard to find in the carpet fibres, she'd discovered. She often felt it crunch beneath her feet when she went barefoot — and sometimes squish between her toes if she turned her room into a sauna as she was wont to do. She truly was spoiled.

She heard the doorbell ring. The sitter had apparently arrived. Alecto got up, scooped her beloved rice into a pile, tossed it in a box with a lid, and shoved it under her bed with all her other knick-knacks.

It was weird to have your twin brother dating someone. Even more so when you actually liked the girlfriend he'd picked out. Maisie was delightfully weird, and she didn't mind when Amycus licked her, which was more than any of the girls who'd come before her could have said.

"Alecto!" Maisie shouted. "Les is here! Come join us."

Alecto sighed heavily and changed with a wave of her wand into a jumpsuit that her friend Bellatrix had given her on the sly. Bella hadn't told her where she'd gotten the jumpsuit, which led Alecto to believe it had been acquired through nefarious actions. It was flesh-coloured and tight, fitting her perfectly. It was almost as if it was her own skin.

She went downstairs and found her brother, soon-to-be sister-in-law, and who must be the sitter. The sitter had pretty dark brown hair that reached a little ways past her shoulders. Alecto suddenly felt very insecure about her own dirty blonde hair that was always pulled up in a severe-looking bun.

"Alecto, this is Les," Amycus said, caterpillar tongue flicking out past his lips. "She'll be watching you on nights Maisie and I go out." He cast an adoring look at his fianceé and extended his tongue and licked up the side of Maisie's face. To her credit, Les didn't even bat an eye at the sight.

"But why do I even need a babysitter?" whined Alecto. "She's got to be younger than me! Shouldn't I be the one watching her?"

"Les is very mature," Maisie broke in.

Alecto crossed her arms and pouted. "And I'm not?"

"Well..." Maisie trailed off.

"I can't believe you!" Alecto stood up abruptly and stomped off. Three steps away, she turned around, stomped back, grabbed Les' hand, and sunk her teeth into Les' index finger.

Les jerked her hand back. "Ow!" She inspected her finger closely, eyeing the sharp puncture wounds Alecto's teeth had left.

Maisie glanced between Les and Alecto before sighing. "Alecto, apologise to Les, then go straight upstairs and brush your teeth."

Alecto glared at the floor as if it had personally done her wrong. "'M s'ry," she mumbled before turning tail and fleeing upstairs.

"Oh, dear." Maisie rose. "Les, let me get you a band-aid." She left and came back a minute later, handing Les a band-aid. "I'm so sorry. I told Alecto to not bite you. Obviously she didn't listen."

Les wrapped the band-aid around her finger. "Biting is a good way of expressing anger. I think Alecto and I will get along just fine."


Maisie and Amycus left shortly thereafter — Amycus's tongue wrapped around Maisie's shoulders — and Les amused herself for a while by exploring the extensive kitchen. Alecto hadn't come back downstairs yet, so Les started pulling the ingredients for sugar cookies out of the cupboards and measuring everything out. After she finished and put the dough in the fridge, setting a timer for two hours, she went upstairs to find Alecto lying on her stomach on the floor and flicking rice at the wall.

Looking around, Les blinked. Everything — literally everything — was shiny. The walls were silver and the carpet was gold, as was the bedspread. All the assorted furniture scattered around the room was shiny.

"Nice decor," she managed. Alecto ignored her and shot another grain of rice across the room. Les peered at her reflection in the shiny wall.

"You look nice today," complimented the wall suddenly.

Les jumped about a foot in the air. "Wha —"

Alecto looked up. "Oh, that's Beatrice! She's the magic talking wallpaper that Maisie bought me on sale from Magimart. Isn't she cute?" She stood and came to stand beside Les, reached out, and tickled her reflection in the wall just under her chin. Her reflection preened like a peacock.

"Very, uh, nice," said Les. "Anyway, I'm making cookies. Why don't you come decorate them with me?"

Alecto promptly agreed and they traipsed downstairs together.


As they decorated (Alecto insisted upon only using shiny gold and silver sprinkles), Les tried — 'tried' being the key word — to start a conversation. Alecto was less-than-helpful on that front.

"Are you looking forward to Maisie and Amycus's wedding?"

Alecto shrugged and upturned the sprinkle sprinkler over a cookie, heaping it with gold flakes. "S'pose."

"Maisie seems nice."

"Mhm."

"What kind of hobbies do you enjoy?"

Now Alecto paid attention. "I like biting," she said thoughtfully. "Shiny things are good. Shiny chew toys are the best. Rice is fun to play with. And Beatrice is a very good friend. She always compliments me."

Les nodded. "Rice is good," she agreed. "And what do Maisie and Amycus like?"

"Amycus likes tongue calisthenics. Maisie likes everything Amycus." Alecto wrinkled her nose. "She even likes it when he licks her cookies and muffins and makes them soggy, then rolls them under the couch." She reached for the shiny sprinkles and stopped, hand hovering above them. "We're out of shinies," she complained. "You'd better go to the store and buy me some more."

Les frowned. "I'm not leaving to buy you more shinies, Alecto. I'm being paid to watch over you, and I can't do that if I'm not here."

Alecto turned red in the face and she suddenly threw herself onto the floor and began beating her hands and feet on the poor, unsuspecting tiles. "I want my Muggle shinies!"

"Alecto!" Les grabbed her charge's arm and hauled her up, dragging her out of the kitchen and into the living room. She pushed Alecto onto the couch, trying not to think about the soggy cookies and muffins that might be under there. "I see I have my work cut out for me. Next time I visit, I will be sure to bring with me a full list of rules for you to read, remember, and adhere to. For now, I will stick with the basics — rules that everyone should live by."

She cleared her throat and crossed her arms, staring straight at the sniffling woman. "One, no tantrums. You are an adult and should act like one. Two, no biting. It really doesn't endear people to you — especially people who haven't been warned beforehand. Three, you don't always get what you want. Please remember rule one when you don't. Four is the golden rule. Treat others the way you want to be treated.

"Remember those four important ones," finished Les, "and you will be fairly well equipped. I must tell Maisie to remind me to bring your full list of rules next time."

"Next time?" Alecto cried. "You mean you're coming back?"

Les smiled. "We'll see what Maisie has to say. You may be her darling can-do-no-wrong-in-her-eyes, but maybe she'll change her mind when I'm finished with you."


"Thank you so much, Les!" Maisie rummaged in her crocodile handbag and pulled out a wad of Muggle bills. "How much do I owe you?"

Les stared into space and mentally calculated. "I set prices before I came...two hundred up front, plus a large bowl of cookies 'n cream ice cream, and three hundred fifty because of the bite." She held up her finger, which was starting to bleed through the band-aid. "If it gets infected, I'm charging a thousand plus the medical bills."

Maisie nodded and handed over the money. "The ice cream will be waiting next time you come," she promised. "And I swear I won't let Amycus lick it."

"That's all I ask." Les opened the front door. "See you around."

"Les!" Alecto threw herself at Les's feet and wrapped her arms around Les's knees. Amycus ambled over and slurped up the side of Les's face with his caterpillar tongue.

"Alecto. Amycus." Maisie's tone was disapproving. "Les has to go now. You'll see her soon, though, I promise."

Reluctantly, Alecto let go and got up, then affectionately nibbled the opposite index finger that she'd previously bitten. "Bye!"

All three of them waved from the front door as Les opened the gate and let herself out. It had been a rather tame night to what she'd expected.


a/n: les, i hope this measures up to expectations. maisie, sorry for the liberties i took with your person. i hope alecto and amycus aren't mad at me for this.

i'm sorry for the headache you must now have from reading my attempt at crack.