Triwizard Task One - The Dragon - Chinese Fireball
Genre: Humour
(character) Ginny Weasley
(word) Explosion
(emotion) Confused
Crystals and Gemstones Club: Carnelian Basic - Write about Fred/George Weasley
Around the World in 31 Days: 38. Comoros - Food: Chocolate Frogs
Writing Club: Showtime 8. sibling Rivalry
Gobstones: Red Stone - Rivalry, Accuracy - (song) Here's to the Zeros by Marianas Trench, Power - (dialogue) "It's not my fault!", Technique - (word) Frost
Wasn't me!
There was a loud bang, and the floor of their bedroom shook, cauldrons rattling, picture frames shaking, and a stack of parchment piled so high on the desk that it blocked George from Fred's view wobbled, threatening to topple before they managed to stabilise it. Moments later, their mother's distinct screech echoed about the house.
"FRED! GEORGE! GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW."
Fred blinked, and looked at George. George looked back, his lips quirking with amusement, even as he shook his head.
"Wasn't me."
"Nor me."
They exchanged perfectly identical looks of confusion, and got to their feet, resigned to the fact that whatever had just happened, whatever mischief had been had, they would be blamed for it, despite their innocence.
It was the third time that month.
George walked into the kitchen first, ever the braver man. Fred wished him well as he shuffled in behind, and slyly glimpsed about, taking in the chaos.
Whoever had pranked their mother had done an excellent job. Pink glitter coated every surface of the kitchen, obviously originating from the tin of tea bags she was still holding in her hand. Only the deep brown irises and whites of Mum's eyes were showing, the rest of her face a comical sparkling baby pink. If anything, it made her glare all the more fearsome.
"Well! What do you have to say for yourselves?" she snapped.
"It wasn't us!" George jumped straight in for the defence.
"As if we would do that to you – our darling mother," Fred agreed. They'd learnt a long time ago that while pranking the rest of the house was acceptable, their mother never took it well. He widened his eyes, attempting to look the picture of perfect innocence, and realised his mistake when Mum huffed, slamming down the tin of tea, and set her hands upon her hips.
The movement dislodged a flurry of glitter that shimmered as it floated to the ground. Fred bit his lip in order to choke back a laugh, and knew George would be doing the same.
"Ha! Don't even think to try that nonsense with me! Why your father lets you get away with it, I don't know. Canary biscuits, those horrible rubber wands, and now exploding tins of tea!"
"Mum," Fred begged, "I promise, it's not my fault - it really wasn't us!"
"Really?" she replied. She pursed her lips. "Who was it, then?"
George elbowed him, just as Fred was about to retort that it could be Cornish pixies for all that he knew, and frankly cared.
"Ron," George said with absolute certainty. "I saw him reading a book yesterday – very suspicious if you ask me."
"Ron spent the night at Seamus' house, and is still there," Mum said with an exasperated sigh. "So, don't try and feed me any of that codswallop. Whenever there's mischief happening in this house, you two are always at the bottom of it. Oh – and don't you talk like that about your brother. He's sitting his OWLs this year, at least he's showing some sign of studying, unlike you two!"
Mum huffed again, withdrew her wand, and flicked it. Within moments the glitter covering every inch of her had vanished, revealing her usual flowery dress and cardigan. The rest of the kitchen was still a pink, sparkling mess.
"You'll be cleaning this by hand – and I'll be having your wands, so don't even think about that!" she declared, and narrowed her eyes at them. "Hand them over, chop chop. You know where the cleaning supplies are."
"Mum!" George cried, but her face was set stern. Fred knew that this wasn't a battle they'd win. He silently handed over his wand, prompting George to do the same.
"There'll be no supper until this is done!" Mum said, and hurried away, giving them one final suspicious glance. As if they'd cause even more trouble when they hadn't even been the instigators of itin the first place!
"We can't keep taking the blame for whoever our mysterious prankster is!" George growled once she'd left.
Fred glanced about the kitchen. It would take them hours to clean, and no doubt they'd be the ones covered head to toe in glitter by the end of it.
"Oh, we'll get them back," Fred said, already beginning to plot. First, they'd have to find out exactly which of their siblings their 'enemy' was.
"That we will."
"They may have won the first battle," Fred continued. He grinned. Despite it all, it was a good prank.
"Whoever they may be," George agreed, eyes narrowed.
"But they haven't won the war," they said in unison, matching smirks upon their faces. Friends, brothers, twins, and eternally in sync. Fred wouldn't be complete without George, and he knew that George felt the same.
"Besides," Fred said with a wink, and withdrew his real wand from up his sleeve. It was time to get down to business. "Don't ever say our fake wands aren't good for anything."
George's jaw dropped, then he laughed with delight, and slugged Fred on the shoulder. "Sly wanker."
"Just for that, I'll only clean my half," Fred threatened.
"Yeah, yeah," George said, throwing himself into a chair and propping his feet up on the table. "And leave your darling brother alone to his misery?"
Fred rolled his eyes. "Scourgify," he called, twisting his wand as he spun in a circle, cleaning up every single speck of glitter. "For that, I want that bar of chocolate that you've got squirrelled away in your cupboard."
"Blackmail, extortion and daylight robbery! Why, brother mine, who knew you could be so cruel as to deprive a man from his last bar of chocolate?"
Fred leaned against the newly cleaned kitchen counter, and arched a sceptical brow.
George laughed, inclining his head. "Alright, we'll split it," George allowed, and Fred was satisfied with that.
Ginny yawned, and tilted her wrist so that the sliver of moonlight that slipped through the crack in her curtains illuminated the muggle watch she wore.
It was nearly midnight, and she counted the remaining seconds as the hand ticked around, before leaping out of bed exactly on the hour.
She was already dressed in jeans and a hoody, having curled up under the covers when Mum had kissed her goodnight. Now, she knelt down, and pushed at the loose floorboard under her bed, yanking it free.
Beneath it lay a Comet 360, perhaps not the finest broom, but certainly one well suited to her purposes. With a grin, she pulled it out, grabbed her supplies, and pushed open the window.
She mounted the broom, and kicked off, swooping into the air, barely managing to mute her whoop of delight. The stars twinkled, only outshone by the waning moon, and the cool air on her face felt like freedom.
With a pleased sigh, she landed upon the chimney. From her bag of supplies she withdrew several rolls of toilet paper. Snorting with anticipation, she unwound them as she flew about the Burrow, draping the white paper rolls all about until you could barely see the brick and tiles beneath. She cackled as she swooped away empty handed, and observed the mess from afar. It was ridiculous, and ugly, and so foolish, but it was also something that made her smile, and she knew would cheer up Harry when she told him all about it.
Ginny flew back into her room, and quickly changed into her pyjamas. Tempting as it was to keep the broom under her bed, it would surely be missed in the next few days, so she snuck out of her room to put it back in the broom shed.
"Aha!"
Ginny froze.
"It's you!"
"It was ickle wickle Ginny all along!"
She turned on one foot to face her twin brothers, who were wearing matching smiles of satisfaction. Distantly, she could hear their parents stirring.
She placed the broom aside, and rubbed her eyes. Her hair was already messy from the flight – exactly as if she'd just gotten out of bed.
"MUM!" she hollered, causing the twins to jump with surprise. Ginny smirked at them, and tossed the broom into their room.
"No!" Fred cried, or at least the twin wearing the 'F' jumper. There was a thumping on the stairs, and Mum appeared in her nightgown.
"What in Merlin's name is going on?" she growled, Dad hovering over her shoulder.
"Fred and George were just flying about outside!" Ginny cried, feigning outrage. She yawned, and curled her shoulders, blinking sleepily. "They woke me up."
"We – what – I never!" George exclaimed. It took everything that Ginny had to hold back her laughter.
"Really, now, boys," Dad muttered with a frown. "At this time of night?"
"I'm going back to bed," Ginny mumbled. As she turned away, she could hear her Mum's hissed reprimands, and the twins' fervent denials. She glanced over her shoulder, and smirked at Fred, who was staring at her with mild look of surprise and intrigue. He narrowed his eyes when she stuck out her tongue at him, and scowled back.
Ginny shut the door to her room, curled up into her covers and laughed into her pillow until tears ran down her face, incredibly pleased with herself. Her prank couldn't have gone better if she had tried.
"Ginny," Fred mused, dangling upside down, his legs wrapped around a branch of one of the apple trees in their orchard. George was pacing back and forth, wearing a path the grass.
"That little minx!" George spat. The he collapsed theatrically to the floor and began to chuckle. "She got us… she got us good!"
They'd been grounded for a week and had another week yet to go, while Ginny had been disappearing off to Luna's house every single day, a smug smile upon her face that spoke of the excellent execution of a well laid plan.
George had begun to gasp, trying to catch his breath between hysterical laughs. His robes were grass-stained and twigs and leaves were caught in his hair. Then he jumped to his feet once more, a feral look to his eye. Fred eyed him, mildly worried for his sanity, not at all reassured by his wild appearance.
"Revenge," George hissed. "If we're going to be stuck at home, then we've got ample time to plan revenge."
Fred twisted about and swung himself off the branch, landing in a crouch.
"Now you're talking," he said with a grin. "And I've got just the idea."
Putting a frog in Ginny's bed was perhaps not the most original of plans.
Instead, they put a hundred frogs in her bed, and all of them chocolate.
"This is a total waste," George said, biting off a leg before throwing the frog back into the pile of animated candy. He snorted. "Or it would be, if it wasn't so brilliant."
Fred grunted, busy weaving a spell to keep the frogs contained under the covers until Ginny drew them back. George's speciality was potions and explosions, whereas Fred liked to think that he had finesse, and so this was his responsibility.
For the rest of the day, they were as meek as mice, not even complaining when it was yet again their turn to do the dishes. For once in his life, Ron hadn't finished his dinner, and had excused himself early, but that was the only remarkable occurrence. They waited in anticipation for Ginny's horrified scream, but none came.
All they could hear was the vile sound of Ron vomiting, even after Ginny had gone to bed.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake," George muttered, and stormed up the stairs, Fred hot on his heels. "What's wrong with you?"
Ron pulled his head out of the toilet, and groaned. He was even paler than usual, and there was a green tint to his skin. "I ate Ginny's stash of chocolate frogs… there were loads of 'em…"
Fred's jaw dropped. "You ate them all?" he asked incredulously.
Ron grimaced. "Yeah. Dunno why she had so many."
Fred and George exchanged a look of pure horror. "You, my dear brother, deserve all the pain and suffering that brings you," George said grimly. Fred couldn't help but agree.
Together, they retreated back to their room. What an absolutely moronic manner of ruining their brilliant plan.
"All of them?" Fred muttered to himself. "All of them!" He shook his head. "How that boy is ever going to pass his OWLs is beyond me."
"Hermione," George reminded him.
"Ha," Fred scoffed. "Of course."
He stood, running a hand through his hair, and sighed. "Right. Desperate times call for desperate measures… we need to think: What Would the Marauders Do?"
They fell silent, staring at each other. George raised an eyebrow, Fred mimicked it. They both crossed their eyes, and then collapsed onto their beds with a laugh.
After a few moments, George spoke up. "I know what they'd do," he said, and smirked. "They'd catch her in the act…"
Fred met his gaze with a grin, twisting to lean up on one elbow. "And expose the truth for all to see!"
"You set the proximity alarm…"
"And you get the camera…"
They jumped out of bed to vigorously shake one another's hands, and nodded in unison. "Let's do this!"
Ginny frowned at the half-eaten chocolate frog that had been squished under her pillow. Fred and George's peculiar and poor attempt at revenge, perhaps? She shrugged, and tossed it in the bin – a perfect shot. She then lay in bed, plotting her next prank.
Inspiration struck. She pulled down her cauldron from on top of her cupboard as quietly as she could, and began throwing a mixture of items in. When she had everything she needed, she lugged it down the stairs, creeping on tiptoes.
She winced as the stove rattled as she placed it on top, but quickly got to work. It only took ten minutes to brew, as easy as a first-year potion, but one that definitely wasn't ever taught. The potion shimmered in the moonlight, an iridescent pearl colour that vaguely made Ginny think of unicorns.
After emptying out all of the shampoo bottles in the house, she filled them up with the potion, and placed them back exactly as they had been. She then emptied the now cold potion down the drain, and stored the cauldron away, before finally allowing sleep to take her.
Ginny woke with a smile upon her lips, and dressed quickly. She could hear her parents moving about downstairs, but there was a surprising lack of shouting.
"Morning!" she called cheerily as she entered the kitchen.
She was greeted by Mum's most furious glare, a comical contrast to her hair, which was rapidly cycling through every colour of the rainbow. Now bright pink, then sky blue, then buttercup yellow, then pale lavender, and so on. Fred and George, most peculiarly, were standing behind Mum with massive grins upon their faces.
"Ginevra Molly Weasley… I expected better of you!"
Ginny blinked, taken aback. "What?" she said, then noticed the pictures decorating every inch of available wall space.
They were of her – namely, last night. She'd been caught on camera brewing and distributing the potion that had dyed her mother's hair in moving, monochrome glory. So much for letting the twins take the blame...
"Hello little sister," George said – or so she thought it was.
"Finally caught you, we have," Fred said, a malicious gleam in his eyes.
"Now it's time to confess to all your other pranks…"
"The ones that we've so cruelly been blamed for!"
Ginny gulped. "It wasn't me!" she protested weakly, but she could see from her mother's frosty gaze that she didn't believe her for one second.
For the first time in a very long while, Ginny realised that she might actually be in trouble.
The smirks upon her brothers' face didn't help the matter at all.
Word count: 2659
Thanks to my lovely beta - Emy!