A/n: This is written for Finals Round 2 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. As Captain of the Falmouth Falcons, my prompt was to write about a specific joke/prank product from the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes collection: the Comb-A-Chameleon.
Karma Chameleon
"How was practice?" Hermione asked as he flopped down on the bench across from her.
"The worst," Harry replied with a groan, sprawling across the table. He reached over to fiddle with the corner of the parchment she was furiously writing on, and she slapped his hand away.
"Malfoy again?" she asked, still not looking up from the essay Harry was sure wasn't due until the next week.
"He has absolutely no talent for Quidditch, Hermione! The only reason he's even on the team is because his father sponsors everything, starting from their equipment all the way to their laundry!" He banged his fist on the table in anger. "You won't believe it if I told you he nearly missed practice today because he was too busy grooming his hair! Grooming his hair, Hermione! What an absolutely detestable prat!"
Hermione shrugged, unimpressed. "Well, if you had a father who helped you buy your way through life, you wouldn't actually need talent or discipline either, would you?" she said, her tone of voice revealing her disinterest.
Harry sat up slowly, watching as Hermione's eyes widened in realisation and her complexion paled. She finally looked up, her expression aghast. "I didn't mean—"
"I'd need a father first, before he can pay for my existence, wouldn't I?" Harry said, cutting her off, as he rose to his feet. It wasn't the first time he had complained to Hermione about Malfoy's lack of discipline, and although he understood that it should make no difference to him since Malfoy was on the opposing team, it didn't bother him any less.
"Harry, wait!"
He could hear Hermione hurriedly pick up her stuff and follow after him as he stormed out of the Great Hall and towards Gryffindor Tower, calling to him every now and then. He hid a smile as he continued to ignore her all the way to the common room. It wasn't that he was upset by what she had said; he was just in a mean mood thanks to a certain blond-haired menace, and making Hermione suffer a little was his way of letting off steam.
"Harryyyy," she called as she struggled to climb through the portrait hole, her arms laden with parchment, textbooks, and whatnot, and Harry couldn't help but feel guilty at the pitiful sight. He was about to go help her when someone grabbed him and spun him around.
"Why, look who it is!" George said, grinning from ear to ear as he draped an arm around Harry's shoulders.
"If it isn't the man of the hour!" Fred added, coming to stand on Harry's other side and winding an arm around his waist.
"No," Harry immediately said as he struggled to escape from the duo. It was never a good sign when the Weasley twins came looking for him.
George tutted and shook his head. "Everyone always says that at first."
"But they always come around," Fred finished, holding up an electric-green hairbrush a little too close to Harry's face.
Harry tried to back away, but the brothers had a firm hold on him, and the closer the hairbrush came to his head, the more he began to panic.
"Accio!"
The twins exclaimed in annoyance when the brush flew out of Fred's hand and landed in Hermione's. She raised her eyebrows, disapproval clear on her face, and Harry used the momentary distraction to wriggle his way out from Fred and George's hold and hurry behind Hermione.
"What new disaster have you invented now?" Hermione asked, eyeing the hairbrush as she held it at arm's length, a frown on her face.
"Disaster, she says," Fred said, striking a woe-begotten pose.
"You are sorely mistaken." George tried to grab the brush from Hermione. "Here, let me show you." He wrestled her for the hairbrush, and Harry snatched it out of Hermione's hand for good measure.
"A splendid steal by Potter!" Fred said as he came around George, who was keeping a screeching Hermione from taking the brush back. "What a talented young man!"
Harry rolled his eyes and nodded towards the hairbrush. "What's it do, then?"
Fred grinned. "Try combing your hair with it."
Harry snorted. "Yeah, right."
Before he knew it, Fred had snatched the hairbrush from Harry and run it through his unruly locks. Harry yelped and shoved the redhead away, staring at his reflection in the window's glass as his hair changed into the same eye-popping electric green as the hairbrush.
"Fred!" Harry rounded on the older boy, who was holding the hairbrush over his head, a shit-eating grin on his face.
"We call it Comb-A-Chameleon! For all your hair colour changing needs!" George said from where he was still holding onto a slack-jawed Hermione. "It was inspired by none other than our very own friendly neighbourhood Metamorphmagus, Nymphadora Tonks!"
"I like my regular hair colour perfectly fine, thank you!" Harry yelled as he tried to wrestle the hairbrush from Fred.
George appeared behind him. "How can you say that when you've never even explored all the exciting options our product offers?"
Harry reacted a moment too late; by the time he had realised what was going on, Fred had his arms locked from behind and George had run the brush through his hair again. "But really, mate, don't you comb your hair at all? It's an absolute mess," George commented as he stepped back and gestured to the window with a flourish.
Harry cried out in dismay as he watched his hair turn into a flaming pink.
"Our Comb-A-Chameleon allows you to customise your hair to any colour of your choice!" Fred said from behind Harry as George demonstrated. He flicked a little switch on the side of the hairbrush—that was now the same colour as Harry's hair—and it changed to a vibrant purple. "Although, only the brightest, most blinding colours are currently available."
"Please, no," Harry said weakly, and an instant later George went rigid, his grin still in place. Fred stopped moving behind Harry as well, and he struggled out of the older boy's vice-like grip. He turned to see Hermione with her wand out, her lips pressed together in a thin line.
"They never learn, these two," she said as she walked over to take the brush from George. As Harry watched, she examined the device for a moment before snapping it in two and placing a piece in each twin's hands. She then flipped her hair over her shoulder, stuck her nose in the air, and strode away, looking satisfied that she had taught the duo a lesson.
Harry shot the twins an apologetic look before following after Hermione, who had succeeded in finally stuffing all of her things into her bag, knowing that once they were far enough away, the spell would be undone and the twins would be un-petrified. He hurried down the corridors, not wanting to be there to witness the duo's anger when they found out what Hermione had done.
There was one thing that upset Fred and George the most, and that was when someone other than them—or their mother—destroyed their inventions, especially if it was intentional. Hermione didn't particularly seem to have any qualms doing just that, but Harry feared for his life. The Weasley twins were known for not pulling punches, and Harry always made it a point to steer clear of any chances of collateral damage courtesy of the duo's revenge pranks.
After all, changing his hair back to its normal colour wasn't as difficult as fixing an invention like the hairbrush—and that was the sole reason for why Harry wasn't particularly upset that his hair was still a blinding purple for the rest of the evening.
-oOo-
He stood outside the Gryffindor Locker Room before practice, trying to build up the courage to be within arm's length of Fred and George with Beater Bats. Before he could make up his mind, the door opened, and one of the twins walked out, laughing over his shoulder. When his eyes fell on Harry, however, so did his smile, and Harry's stomach, along with it. Fred stood with his eyebrows raised, his bat making a soft thudding sound as he hit his shoulder pad over and over again.
"Er, hi?" Harry tried, prepared to bolt any second.
Fred regarded him for a moment before going back into the locker room, and Harry let his head hang with guilt.
It had been over three days since Hermione had broken the hairbrush, and the twins had been angrier than either he or Hermione had anticipated. Apparently, since the brush had been their very first prototype, they had intended to gift it to Tonks on her wedding day. Hermione had gone sleepless nights trying to fix it, but she couldn't quite get it to work like it had, and the twins hadn't spoken to either her or Harry since. Not only did Harry have to then suffer the duo's silence, but also Hermione's constant wailing and moaning and his own guilt at not having stopped her.
Inhaling deeply, he made up his mind and pushed open the door. Heart racing as he approached the twins, he waited until they stopped joking around with Angelina and focused their attention on him. Before they could walk away, Harry grabbed one of them by the arm and said, "Wait!"
They regarded him with unimpressed expressions, and Harry swallowed. "Er, I was actually wondering if I could ask a favour of you both."
The twins exchanged amused glances. "A favour, he says," Fred said.
"Gotta appreciate the nerve of him, if nothing else," George added with a snort.
"Look, I know we went too far, but don't you think you should give me a chance to redeem myself?" Harry asked, nervous and frustrated at the same time. He hated not being able to laugh and joke around with the twins, not having realised until then how stressful being in their bad books was. But he also knew that Fred and George were going to keep goading him until he gave them what they wanted.
The twins pretended to have a deep discussion on whether or not to forgive him, and finally Fred said, "Alright." When Harry sighed in relief, he added, "But it depends on what you're offering."
Harry nodded, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes, having been prepared to bribe the twins into forgiving him anyway. "Three galleons," he said, and when the duo only scoffed in reply, he added, "each."
Fred and George grinned. "Done." They came to stand on either side of him and rested their arms on his shoulders. "What can we do for you?"
Harry inhaled deeply and then began to explain to them what he wanted. The idea had dawned on him suddenly the previous evening when Malfoy had skipped Quidditch practice yet again, this time because he had spotted a split end or two in his hair and needed to get it urgently "treated".
Harry couldn't have cared less whether or not Malfoy attended practice. In fact, it worked in his favour if Malfoy's constant absences secured Gryffindor's chance at winning the House Cup. But he just couldn't stand that nobody said anything to the stupid git no matter what he did. Snape giving Malfoy a free pass was a different issue; that the blond got away with breaking the Quidditch decorum every time annoyed Harry endlessly.
Also, and he was never going to admit this to anyone but himself, it irked him that Malfoy had such great hair when his own was nothing short of a natural disaster. I mean, Harry thought, how does he manage to keep it so impeccable even while zooming across the pitch on a broom, for Merlin's sake? If that wasn't a talent, Harry didn't know what was, and if he had to be honest, that was probably the main reason for his resentment. Not that he was going to tell anyone that, though.
And so, he had gotten a brilliant idea on how to kill two birds with one stone by appealing to Fred and George to teach Malfoy a lesson.
By the time he had finished explaining what he wanted, the twins were more than willing to help him—for free, even—as long as they got full credit for the consequences. Harry had no problems with that, and the deal was sealed.
-oOo-
He sat on the edge of his seat, bouncing his knee in nervous excitement. Hermione placed a hand on his thigh to make him stop, shooting him an annoyed look. Harry ignored her as he continued to fiddle with the straps on his gloves, pretending to fix the tears in them as he surreptitiously glanced across the Great Hall every now and then, searching the length of the Slytherin table for a certain blond.
After a while, the blond menace and his goons wandered in and settled down almost directly opposite Harry and Hermione and behind Ron, looking in their direction with sneers and jeers. Hermione hissed in annoyance when a particularly loud and nasty comment about Mudbloods and blood traitors travelled across the quiet hall and fell on their ears. She began packing her things when Ron reached across the table and placed a hand on her parchment.
"Just ignore them like always," he said in a low voice, although his ears had gone red in anger. He nodded to Harry's gloves in an attempt to distract Hermione. "What've you been trying to do with those anyway?"
Before Harry could answer, a small owl swooped in through the windows and deposited a fancily wrapped package before Malfoy. Harry pursed his lips to keep from grinning as he peered over Ron's shoulder, watching Malfoy rip open the gift with a smug smirk on his face. When Ron frowned and began to turn around, Harry grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him forward.
"Do not, and I repeat, do not look back no matter what." Both Ron and Hermione shot him curious frowns. He nodded towards the Slytherin table and grinned. "Looks like somebody sent Malfoy an early Christmas present."
Malfoy pulled out a shimmering silver hairbrush and turned it over in his hands, an impressed expression on his face. Harry couldn't see it very clearly from so far away, but he knew it had a sleek silver handle that curled at the base, thin vines winding around the bristles on the front and framing the mirror on the back, and tiny white faux rhinestones embedded in the curls. He knew this because he had inspected the hairbrush himself, commending the Weasley twins for outdoing themselves. "We provide nothing but the best," Fred had told Harry with a wink when he had taken the brush to gift-wrap and deliver to Malfoy.
Hermione gasped a moment later, finally having caught on to what was happening, and slapped Harry's arm repeatedly.
"Harry, is that what I think it is?" she whispered, her eyes wide and shimmering.
Harry's grin widened. "Yup." He then nudged her shoulder. "Pack your things. We're gonna have to get out of here soon if we don't want to cause a scene."
"What's going on?" Ron hissed from across the table, eyeing the two of them curiously as they began to move towards the door. "Tell me what's happening!"
Harry watched as Malfoy called to Pansy Parkinson and thanked her for the gift, and when she told him it wasn't from her, he searched the packaging for a name. By then, his hair was already changing colour. Brilliant emerald streaks were winding their way down from his scalp, crisscrossing across his head to form a silver and green pattern through his hair. Everybody at the Slytherin table was staring at him wide-eyed and open-mouthed, and instead of wondering what was wrong, Malfoy seemed to be enjoying the sudden attention.
"My hair must look fantastic," Harry heard him tell a slack-jawed Goyle as he picked up the hairbrush.
"Let's go, let's go," Hermione was saying through giggles as she pushed Harry towards the double doors.
Ron, finally having caught sight of the spectacle, guffawed. "Nice hair, Malfoy!" Before he could say anything more, Hermione was pulling them away.
Harry watched over his shoulder as Malfoy frowned, grabbed the hairbrush, and ran it through his hair once again as his dumbfounded minions looked on. The emerald cheques now spread all across his head and turned a bright green. Parkinson had arrived with a hand mirror, and Malfoy screamed as he caught sight of himself and touched his hair. In a second, his green locks seemed to explode and puff out in a spiky afro, leading to more screaming and yelling.
When Malfoy finally turned away from the mirror to glare at Harry, the latter waved and grinned. "Don't worry, Malfoy," he called. "I'll let your teammates know that you'll be late for practice because you have to groom your hair!"
Chortling, he hooked his arms around Ron and Hermione's shoulders, Malfoy's enraged shouts of 'I'm going to kill you, Potter!' following them out of the Great Hall.
"Fred and George are going to be thrilled when I tell them what happened," Ron said, wiping tears from his eyes.
"Don't ever tell them I said this, but the Comb-A-Chameleon may just be my favourite joke product of theirs yet," Hermione said, her eyes twinkling. "I don't even mind that they outdid Ginny and my gift for Tonks' wedding."
"And here I thought I had figured out Malfoy's talent," Harry mused as they made their way up to the Gryffindor Common Room.
"What is it?" Ron and Hermione asked.
Harry grinned. "Well, I was going to say his hair, but looks like his father's gonna have to pay for that, too."