A/N: This is written for Round Five of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all.
Team: Montrose Magpies
Position: Chaser One
Name: Legacy
Words: 1,099
Character: Fred Weasley
Prompts: #2 "We're running out of time", #3 Winter, and #6 Candle
"Listen here, Weasleys," Argus Filch said to me and George as he led us to his office. "Here at Hogwarts, we don't appreciate tomfoolery of any kind. What you did today was extremely out of line, and I have half a mind to get you expelled!"
"Excuse me, Mr. Filch, but I do not think that what my brother and I did today was at all out of line. We were simply having a good time, after all," I said, winking at George from behind Filch's back. His cat, Mrs. Norris, was walking alongside us and kept hissing, and I knew that George had half a mind to kick her, but he didn't dare considering the fact that Filch loves his cat so dearly.
George grinned, seeming to catch on to what I was trying to do. "Yeah, Mr. Filch, we were never trying to harm anybody when we enchanted those snowballs to catapult into the hallway and start a snowball fight. It's the first snow of the winter; we just wanted everybody to have a good time. And how were we supposed to know that the snow would set off the Dungbomb? It's not our fault, really, Mr. Filch. If you have to punish anybody, I'd say the only logical thing to punish would be the snow. We're really very sorry." At this point in his speech, George looked up to him with wide, innocent brown eyes. I smirked, thinking of how most teachers fell for that even though everybody else knew it was fake.
Mr. Filch stiffened. "Be that as it may, Weasley, you still caused quite the ruckus and even got Peeves involved. That deserves a large punishment, and I'm just the person to give it to you."
After he finished speaking, we arrived at Filch's office. I was surprised to see that it looked just like a normal office at Hogwarts (how would I know this? George and I tend to get in trouble quite frequently…) even though he was a Squib. George and I had found that out when we were in his office the last time and we saw a notice that his Kwikspell kit was to be arriving shortly. I noticed that there were some floating candles in his office, just like there were in the Great Hall, and I thought that he might have had one of the other teachers charm them to do that for him, just so he could have some magic in his office. There was a rather large filing cabinet that took up one whole wall of the office, and I noticed that it was labeled 'Punishments'. I grinned. Did that mean George and I would end up there now?
Filch frowned as we took seats in front of his desk. He glanced fondly at highly polished chains and manacles that were hanging up behind his desk before turning back to face my brother and I. "It's a shame they ruled that hanging the children by their thumbs was a cruel and unusual punishment… I always kept the chains neatly groomed, in case they ever do change their minds…" He gave the two of us a significant look, but then stopped and stared at the open door as a large clatter was heard from overhead. "That'll be Peeves again," he murmured, glancing out the door and then back to George and I. It seemed as though he was torn between pursuing Peeves and staying to discipline the two of us.
Finally, he came to a decision. "You two will be fine here for a moment while I go and stop Peeves. Don't you dare touch anything," he added threateningly before stalking out of the room to get the poltergeist.
George grinned at me and said, "He must have some really cool stuff in there." I looked towards the corner of the room to which he was pointing and saw a chest of drawers, and the bottom drawer was labeled 'Confiscated and Highly Dangerous'.
I smiled widely and said at once, "I'll stand guard while you dig through it. Take anything you think looks interesting." George nodded, moving over to the drawer while I stepped toward the open door, listening intently to what was going on behind me and what was going on in front of me.
I heard George mutter, "Alohomora," and that seemed to do the trick to open the drawer. It then slid open with ease, and I heard an excited yelp from behind me. "Whoa," he breathed, and I turned around to see what he'd found. "An exploding dragon! When it explodes, the guts spill out over everybody present and it burns when it touches skin! I never thought I'd ever see one of these in person; the only reason I've heard about them is because Charlie told me! I'll put it back though, Charlie says it uses a lot of Dark magic."
After that, I turned back to the door to continue keeping watch. There were hardly any sounds from up above, so I assumed that Peeves had moved to a different part of the castle to try and evade Filch. I heard laughter from up the stairs and gathered that it was some Hufflepuffs in our year, Jason Sparks and Caleb Fresolone. I heaved a sigh of relief; at least it wasn't Filch returning.
"Huh," I heard from behind me, and I turned to George once more. He was holding up a large piece of blank parchment that looked as though it was anything but highly dangerous. I frowned. "What do you reckon it does?" George asked me.
I shrugged, but before I had a chance to answer I heard footsteps racing down the hall towards us. "Quick, George—we're running out of time! Throw it in your pocket, we'll take it with us and figure it out later!"
I hopped over my seat to land sitting in it while George stuffed whatever it was into his pocket, shut the door, locked it, and landed in his seat just as Filch walked into the office. "You boys have been keeping out of trouble, yes?" He said, wheezing as he crossed the room to sit behind his desk.
I nodded, saying, "Of course," just as George said, "Definitely." Filch frowned, but then shook his head and continued lecturing us as if nothing unusual had just happened. George and I eventually left Filch's office with a month's worth of Saturday detentions but we both were inwardly smirking. We now had a highly dangerous artifact and we couldn't wait to find out what it was!