QLFC submission

Season 6: Caerphilly Catapults

Round 3, Chaser 2: Furby

Prompts: (Color) Powder grey, (Object) Jumper/Sweater, (Emotion) Fear.

Word Count: 1,487

"Harry!"

I jolt awake at the sound of a frantic whisper. It takes a second to realize that it's Ron across the room, and another to process that no, Ron hadn't snuck into my room at the Dursleys, I was in Ron's room at the Burrow.

"What?" I murmur, shifting to look for my glasses.

"No! Don't move!" he hisses, panic clear in his voice. I freeze immediately. I instantly strain my ears, listening to what it could be that could cause this panic. If it was a spider again, I was going to hit him and not the insect.

"I see you!"

The high pitched voice, followed by a giggle, has me gasping as my eyes swing to the top of his dresser. The window curtain was open, so I could make out a small, blurred object on it that hadn't been there when we were getting ready for bed. It wasn't large, and it wasn't moving. It was a powder grey color with white mixed in. If I could just see it-

"What is it?" he hisses at me again.

"What's it look like?" I murmur back. Slowly, slowly, I start reaching over to the side of my cot. He makes a distressed sound but doesn't tell me to stay still again.

"It's-"

"Where is the light?"

The high pitched voice makes me shudder and then freeze with my arm outstretched. What was it? My mind starts racing over all the creatures I've ever read about. Seven years of magical education skim by in my mind's eye as I stay frozen. Small, talking, grey colored animal doesn't fit any kind of description I've ever read. I can't think of a shape-shifting animal that would do it either.

"I can't see it, Ron." I prompt him softly when over a minute goes by and it's quiet. I continue my slow stretch for my glasses while he talks.

"It's grey, with a white patch in the middle. It's got big, brown eyes and it keeps moving its ears. It's covered in… fur, except around the eyes, that looks like skin." he murmurs back. I can hear him moving now, too. I feel my fingers brush along the rim of my glasses and move to pick them up.

"Me very hungry."

The sound of my glasses, along with something on Ron's side of the room, clattering to the floor echoes in the room. We both freeze, and I feel like my heart stops for a few seconds before starting at a frightening, hard pace. I was blind, Ron had dropped what sounded like his wand, and we were both terrified out of our minds at this thing that was in the room.

"Why isn't it moving!?" He starts panicking across the room and I hurriedly hush his loud voice. It hadn't moved yet, I didn't want it scampering off somewhere I couldn't place it without my glassses. When the thing doesn't react, I start sliding my body to the floor. I was going painfully slow, only moving centimeters at a time, but I couldn't see what I was doing and the thing in the room was an unknown, so I took my time. My arms start cramping from the angles I was using to push myself to the ground, but I ignore it. I didn't have another option. Ron was too scared to move, it didn't even look like he was breathing, he wasn't going to be of any help. I feel like my chest should be bruised by how hard my heart was thumping away, and I knew that this thing could hear it across the room.

"Me very hungry." It repeats. This time I only pause a moment before continuing. My feet hit the ground and I start sliding them along the floor so that I could lower into a sitting position. The wood floors make it easy, until my left foot slides out from underneath me, making me land with a loud thud on the floor on my back end and I cringe at the sound.

"Harry!"

Ron springs up, diving down to the floor with me. He latches onto my leg with one hand like he's making sure he knows where I am without taking his eyes off of the animal. His palm was slick against my barred ankle, which is probably part of the reason he dropped his wand to begin with. I feel around quickly to find what I'd caught my foot on, to find one of Ron's discarded sweaters. The floor was littered with his clothes and school objects, so I wasn't surprised. Ron watches the thing on his dresser wearily as I pick up my glasses, and I even find his wand and slide it into his hand before I turn. I wasn't sure where my wand was, and I was confident he'd at least stun it long enough to cover me finding mine if it was needed. I chance a glance up at the animal before I turn to look for my wand, but-

"Oh. What?" I murmur, whirling around again. I pause a moment before standing up.

"Harry! Don't go near it!" He exclaims, but I wave him off as I reach his dresser.

"Hug me!" it screeches as I pick it up. I feel along the bottom and flip the switch. I take a moment to calm my pounding heart, and I'm half tempted to scream at him. Why didn't he just tell me he had one of these? I was scared out of my mind!

"There. Where did you get a Furby from?" I ask as he stands from the floor. He swishes his wand and the lights around the room flare on.

"A what? You know what that is?" he asks, making no move to get closer and his wand still trained on the animatronic in my hands.

"Yeah, it's a-" I cut off as I hear something at the door. I scowl, suddenly having a good idea of what was going on. I slam the animatronic onto the dresser again, moving to the door. I swing it open and two identical redheads fall into the room, laughing while they try and support each other.

"Where did you two get a Furby from?" I demand. Fred closes the door as they calm down so that they don't wake the rest of the house now that I'd broken the silencing charm they had put up.

"Lee gave it to us-"

"-At work the other day."

"His brother had it-"

"-but said it scared him too much."

"So he let us have it," they finish off together, grinning widely.

"What is it?" Ron asks, approaching his dresser and the turned off animatronic carefully.

"It's a Furby. It's a toy for muggle kids. It can talk and move and you can interact with them. I saw a commercial for one at the Dursley's a few times," I admit, waving to the doll-like creature. I'd found them creepy even in the commercials, so I wasn't surprised the twins had immediately thought to prank us with it. Fred moves over, picking up the furry object with a grin.

"Isn't it the weirdest toy you've ever seen?" he says a little gleefully.

"It's creepy is what it is. Have you pranked anyone else with it?" I ask, suddenly curious.

"We tried to get Ginny and Hermione last night-"

"-but Hermione knew what it was immediately. We swore them to secrecy-"

"-So that we could get you guys tonight. And Charlie is on the agenda tomorrow-"

"-So long as you two don't spoil the fun," they explain as Fred passes the animatronic to George, who expertly removes the batteries from it with a little tool he had on him.

"What are you doing?" I ask, confused as to why they needed to remove the batteries. I'd turned it off, hadn't I?

"Batteries drain incredibly fast around magic."

"Removing them will save what little bit we have."

"Plus the thing has gone off a couple times while we'd had the little flip switched-"

"-So we make sure it can't do that."

"Right. Can we go back to bed now? It's three in the morning." Ron grumbles. Now that he knows that he's not in danger, he's pretty grumpy. He turns the lights off, signaling us all that he was done with the conversation. I follow the twins to the door and they turn to me cheerfully.

"Night, Harry!" They chime together. I roll my eyes.

"Goodnight Fred, goodnight George." I say back, giving a small wave.

"Hey, no jokes!"

The three of us freeze, all of us looking at the animatronic tucked under Georges' arm. It was upside down, and the flap for the batteries was still open and clearly empty. But it was impossible not to recognize the high-pitched voice.

"Night!" I say quickly, slamming the door on the stunned twins faces.