WARNING: This is a crackfic—in fact, it almost completely defies the characterization of nearly every HP/OUaT character. JKR and the creators of Once Upon a Time would probably like to murder us. This includes OOC, possible mild profanity, crackpairings, and overall bizarreness. Read at your own risk!
Chapter One: Lost
It was a bright and sunny afternoon when the scarlet steam engine pulled into Platform 9 ¾ at King's Cross Station. Black-robed students rushed out of the Hogwarts Express to be reunited with their parental units, chattering happily about the splendid year that they had spent away from home without the constant naggings of family members and fussy old neighbors.
Fred and George Weasley stood leaning against pillars, their identical eyes scanning the swarm of midgets eagerly. Mr and Mrs Weasley had gone off to an antique rubber duck bidding and would not be back home until much later, so the twins had been charged with the dangerous task of picking up five angsty teenagers who had just faced off with the Death Eaters (including Lucius Malfoy and his pimp cane) in the Department of Mysteries.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" A hideous wail ripped through the air.
"That must be them!" chirped George brightly. Fred beamed.
"At last I shall be reunited with Hermoninny!" he exclaimed, using the term that he had adopted from Viktor Krum's mispronunciation of Hermione Granger's name.
"What about Eldr—I mean, Ron and Ginny?"
"Yeah, them too." Fred shrugged. "But, honestly, I just want to comment about that dead badger on Hermione's head."
George chuckled. The twins straightened up and strutted (yes, strutted—it had taken five hours of practice and they knew that it would embarrass the Niflheim out of their sister Ginny) towards the noise. As a group of pimply Ravenclaws (namely, Marietta Edgecomb) moved out of the way, Fred and George saw the source of the noise.
Harry Potter was wailing and clutching at his ear.
"What's up with him?" asked Fred.
"He's been having violent mood swings ever since Sirius—I mean, ever since that stuff happened," Ginny explained, looking sympathetically at the Chosen One.
"Maybe he's pregnant!" said Ron excitedly. Everyone turned to look at him and he shrunk under their gaze, his freakishly large ears turning Gryffindor red. "Or just traumatized."
"What's wrong, Harry?" inquired Hermione Granger wearily. She had been putting up with sudden outbursts from Harry ever since the Department of Mysteries. You should probably know by now that, in the alternate universe that the authors have created, everyone is OOC and Harry and Ron's already miniscule brains had shrunk due to an explosion in Potions class (not Snape's doing, of course, for that would be absurd) during second year. Hermione had been searching for a cure ever since—seeing as she had to put up with them in every HP book there is—and had yet been unsuccessful.
"I lost it!" Harry cried. "I lost it!"
"What did you lose, Harry?" asked Ginny who, despite being quite sensible compared to the other characters that will soon appear in this crackfic, had a rather unfortunate crush on Harry.
"My earring! It's gone!"
"Harry, your ears aren't even pierced!" growled Hermione.
"I know!" the messy-haired child wailed. "It was a clip-on! And it's gone!"
"Did you leave it on the train?" asked Fred, who just wanted for this dramatic scene to end so that he could start flirting with Hermione (yes, this crackfic features humorous and somewhat one-sided Fremione!) or, if that wasn't an option, beating up Ron. If he had time later, he and George would go and egg Percy's prissy little house in London where he sipped tea and collected lace doilies.
"I don't know!" replied a distraught Harry. "Oh, please, we have to go back and get it!"
Hermione looked nonplussed. "Why, may I ask?"
"It's special!" the Boy Who Lived whimpered.
Hermione was about to retort angrily, but Ginny cut her off. "Okay, Harry, we'll go back and get it!" the redhead assured Harry patiently, ignoring her friend's scathing look. "Where do you think you left it?"
Now that he was on the way to getting what he wanted, Harry immediately straightened up. "I don't know!" he replied cheerfully, flashing a bright smile at his friends. Hermione made a growling noise in the back of her throat.
"Well, as fascinating as this has been," said Fred, rolling his eyes. "We really need to get going."
"Let's go, midgets!" said George, summoning their luggage with a quick Accio spell.
"Wait!" shouted Harry. "I know where I left it!"
Ron jumped up and down with excitement.
"Alright then, Harry," sighed Fred. "Where is it, my mop-headed friend?"
"The Department of Mysteries!" trilled Harry.
"Harry, you know we can't go there!" Hermione said gently. "We'll get you a new … erm … clip-on earring…." She rocked back and forth awkwardly, looking thoroughly uncomfortable and disturbed.
Harry's face crumpled once more.
"Should I stun him so that we can get him to the car?" asked George eagerly.
"No!" Ginny scolded.
Later at the Burrow, Mr and Mrs Weasley had still not returned. The twins had directed Hermione to a "fellytone" and she had ordered Chinese takeout. While George flew the car into town to collect this gourmet meal, Fred stayed at home to "babysit" the others. He then decided that he would teach Harry and Ron how to play poker in order to distract Harry from his lost earring.
"I win again!" crowed Fred, gathering up the rather impressive pile of chips and moving them to his side of the table.
"This is a stupid game," sniffed Harry. Ron popped a poker chip in his mouth and made a face.
"You said it was Garden Salsa flavored!" he complained to his brother.
"No, I said it was a poker chip. Not a potato chip."
Ron continued to crunch loudly on the thin plastic disk. Fred sighed.
At that moment, Hermione and Ginny came in from de-gnoming the garden.
"Shoes off!" shouted Fred.
Ginny looked up. "What?"
"Shoes off," repeated Fred. "You're tracking mud on the floor."
The youngest Weasley gave him a sharp look. "Why do you care?"
"Because I am in charge and you will do as I say."
Ginny yanked off her muddy boots and threw them outside, muttering under her breath. Hermione copied her, minus the muttering.
"Do you want to play poker with us?" asked Ron, looking hopeful.
"No," both girls replied in unison.
"When will George be back?" asked Hermione.
Fred shrugged, trying not to look too excited that she was talking to him without insulting him. "I don't know," he said, "but until then you would always ask Ronald here if you could have some of his chips."
Ron's eyes flashed yellow and he hissed. "PRECIOUS!" he screeched, cramming the chips in his mouth and galloping upstairs on all fours. The other four stood in stunned silence, watching him go.
"What was that?" demanded Ginny.
Hermione bit her lip, thinking back to the long-ago explosion that had scrambled the brains of her two best friends. Was Ron having long-term affects? If he was, how serious were they? What would happen to him?
At that moment, George came in with an armload of white Styrofoam boxes. "Dinner!" he called.
"I'll go get Ron," volunteered Fred, grabbing his trusty Beater bat on the way up. "Just in case," he said quickly as he noted Hermione's horrified look.
Fred crept cautiously up the creaking stairs, Beater bat at the ready. He looked around him, peering into shadows that seemed to leer out at him from the corners. His ears pricked up as he heard a strange giggle coming from behind the room to Ron's door. Heart hammering in his not-so-muscular chest, Fred tip-toed forward and slowly opened the door.
There was Ron, rocking back and forth in a fetal position, giggling maniacally. His eyes were a glowing, lamp-like yellow that made the hairs on the back of Fred's neck stand up.
"Ron?" he asked in a shaking voice. "Are you oka—?"
Ron growled and crawled towards Fred on all fours, sniffing the air. Fred stared in horror—horror of how his little brother was acting and horror that the authors of this story were placing him in such an odd situation.
"Ron, come off it! This isn't funny!" Then, in a whisper, he added, "Felicity and Briony, you are both so dead."
Ron snarled. Fred gripped the Beater bat, ready to swing. Whatever this was, it wasn't Ron. It looked like him, but it wasn't him.
Was it?
Just when he was preparing to strike, the glow in Ron's eyes faded and he stood up. "Is George back yet?"
Fred stared at him, barely daring to breathe. "What?"
"Is George back yet?" Ron repeated. "I'm starving!" Without another word, he brushed past Fred and started towards the stairs. He turned around. "You coming?"
Dinner was an awkward affair. The Weasley Parental Units had yet to return, and Fred was still shaken from the ordeal with Ron. His brother, however, seemed to have no recollection of it and happily began to chow down on the eggrolls.
For once, the firstborn Weasley twin had no jokes to make—not about Hermione's hair, not about Harry's secret freckle, not even about the bit of rice stuck to George's chin. Hermione was staring at him anxiously.
Is something wrong? she seemed to be asking.
Of course not, Hermoninny, he responded in an attempt at a telepathic joke. Unfortunately for him, neither one of them knew how to perform telepathy and Hermione did not receive his answer. After they had finished, Fred broke open his fortune cookie and extracted the slip of paper.
A spitting companion with long ears is in your near future. Beware of chainsaws.
"George?" asked Fred wearily. For the first time in his 18 years of life, he felt annoyance at a bizarre fortune. In fact, he was annoyed at everything at the moment. "Is this from Hobo Joe's International Takeout?"
"Why of course!" said George. "That's where Weasleys always get their food when the Female Parental Unit isn't home!"
Ginny looked like she was about to cry. Hermione patted her arm consolingly.
Before long, Fred and George were sending their charges to bed.
"It's six thirty!" argued Ron.
"Shut up, Ronniekins, or we'll throw you over the garden wall with the gnomes," said George. Fred remained silent, still worrying over Ron's earlier episode.
Harry, who was still moping over his lost earring, stuck out his lower lip. "I don't wanna!"
"If you go to bed, I'll order pancakes from Hobo Joe's in the morning!" George bribed.
Harry remained unmoved.
"Come on, Harry," said Ron. "I've got chocolate frogs and a stack of inappropriate magazines in my room!"
The two boys were upstairs in a flash, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.
"I hate you all," said Ginny. "Except for Hermione."
"Thanks," said Hermione gratefully.
The two girls gave the twins filthy looks before going upstairs. Fred immediately set to work on setting up a network of Extendable Ears connecting their room his and George's.
"What are you doing?" asked George.
"I don't trust them," said Fred while, in reality, he was curious about whether or not Hermione talked in their sleep. In addition, he was hoping to get his mind off of what had happened earlier. He debated whether or not he should tell George.
"Why don't you trust them?"
Fred shrugged, tearing his mind away from Ron. "You know girls. They never sleep at sleepovers. They'll probably be up all night giggling and talking about their crushes.
"Isn't that what we do?" asked George, a look of befuddlement on his freckled face.
"That's different. We're mature adults."
"Hermione is more mature than either of us," said George wryly. "As I'm sure you've noticed."
"What?!"
"You heard me." George laughed. "I've seen the way you look at our nerdy and formerly-bucktoothed bookworm friend. You fancy her."
Fred spluttered. "I—how—?"
George shook his head sadly. "Come on, broski, let's play some poker."
They were both deep in their game when Ron came down in his too-small maroon pajamas. "Fred? George?"
"Ron! You should be asleep!" scolded George, even if it was only six forty-five. "Or at least reading your inappropriate magazines."
"Harry got bored of Playwizard," Ron explained. "He's gone."
"Asleep, you mean?"
"No," said Ron, shaking his head. "He's gone. Poof."
"Gone?" asked Fred. "Where?"
"The Department of Mysteries," said Ron gravely. "He's gone to find his earring."
A/N: Dun-dun-duuuuuuuuuuuunnn! Will they find Harry? Will Fred's fortune be a major chunk of demented foreshadowing? Does Hermione talk in her sleep? Stay tuned to find out!
(PS: Please keep in mind that this is a crackfic. The authors of this story are already as mad as hatters, so don't blame us. This chapter was basically just an introduction and the OUaT part comes in during the next chapter. Please review and keep in mind that if you truly hated this story as much as Archie Hopper hates bug spray, you probably won't have read this far anyway. Thanks!)