It was a quiet day in the Gryffindor common room. Or at least, as quiet as it could be when about thirty rambunctious teenagers were crammed in, all talking and laughing at something or another. Dominating the scene were the Weasley cousins, almost all of the ten in the school. The group was quieter than usual, however, due in part to the absence of the two youngest Weasley girls.
It was a silence that was too good to last long.
Lily and Roxanne came running down from the girls' dormitories, carrying suspicious looking packages. They ran to the couch and plopped down over the back, squeezing in between James and Dominique.
"Operation W.A.E.F is officially in effect!" shouted Lily.
Her announcement was met with mixed reactions; some groaned, some laughed, others wisely kept minding their own business.
"Please say this isn't another of you two's harebrained ideas that you're going to drag us into," said Scorpius, not looking up from the game of chess he was playing with Rose.
"Nope," Roxie responded, "we can do it all on our own!"
"And what, may I ask, does 'W.A.E.F' stand for?" asked Rose.
"'Watch Albus Experience Fear!'"
There was a pause. "Dear god, what did he do to piss you girls off?"
Roxie shrugged. "Nothing, really, we're just bored and figure he can't do anything creative to get back at us."
Rose considered this. Really, he couldn't. Al wasn't creative or particularly vengeful, but honestly, messing with a Weasley is just a bad idea because it will come back and haunt you somehow. He'd get revenge even if he didn't mean to. Regardless of any of that, Lily and Roxie did as they pleased. They didn't seem to care.
Louis voiced these concerns, as they appeared to be shared around the group. "Well, someone will probably help him then. This whole thing is not good."
Dominique snorted. "No, nobody will help him, because it will be incredibly funny. You know it too."
"Nice job being a role model."
"What, I'm just making a point!"
"Regardless of a point or not, you shouldn't encourage it!"
"Wait," started James, "How long have you been scaring the hell out of your cousins?"
The girls shared a look, obviously thinking.
"Hmm… maybe three-"
"Four-"
"Make it a month to be safe-"
"Yeah, about a month."
"So was it you two who stole dad's cloak and used it to anonymously push me into the lake?"
The girls paused, then glared at James.
"YOU HAVE NO PROOF!"
With that, the girls turned and ran up the stairs to the dormitories.
James watched them go, shaking his head. "Honestly, those girls are going to be the death of us."
Scorpius laughed. "Well, at least they're adorable and endearing. Otherwise it'd be them being pushed into the lake. Hey, anyone else notice that the girls went into the boys' dorms and not the girls'?"
There was a pause as this information set in. A few seconds later, there was a loud burst of noise from the dorm stairs: an explosion followed by a puff of black smoke, two maniacal laughs, and what sounded like a girl screaming. Albus came running down the stairs and crashed into the couch, covered in soot. The common room burst out laughing. "Was that you screaming, Al?" James asked through his laughter.
Al turned bright red and started backing away from his brother. "You have no proof!"
"Actually they do!" shouted Roxie, holding a camera aloft.
"Because we got pictures!" Lily finished.
Al turned around and ran back towards the steps to his dormitory, wiping soot out of his hair and swearing loudly. Over the din of laughter, Dominique shouted at he cousin's back, "Language, little boy! And Louis says I'm a bad role model!"
Rose, who had been trying not to laugh at her cousin's misfortune, couldn't help herself from laughing. She looked to Scorpius, who was rolling on the floor, having knocked over the chessboard. She started to say an apology about her crazy family (which she did quite often, as they were, in fact, crazy), before he calmed down enough to get out, "I love your family."
Rose smiled. All in all, she thought, she really did love them too, crazy or not.
