A/N: Here's the next chapter for April Fool's Day!

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Chapter 2

The next morning arrived in an array of puffy clouds and bright sunshine. Everything in the neighborhood seemed bright and chipper, as every house in sight and every front yard radiated a certain happy bliss that only seemed to exist during the summer.

The sunshine drifting in from Hermione's bedroom window partially woke her up, in addition to her alarm clock going off. Hermione drowsily reached over and hit the "Off" button on the alarm clock and then rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She felt sufficiently rested up after the previous day of mayhem, but who knew what other sort of trouble awaited her today.

And, ironically, Hermione's door opened at that moment and in came Sara, who was giggling profusely. This caused Hermione to stare at her with suspicious narrowed eyes.

"What're you up to?"

From the giggling, Hermione could only conclude one thing: that Sara and the others were more likely up to something.

"Oh...," Sara said through her giggling fit, "nothing." Her voice contained that sweet and innocent tone that was obviously what deluded other people into thinking that Sara was a completely harmless kid.

"I can tell that you're up to something. Now tell me what it is."

"Sorry," Sara continued playfully, "I really don't have any idea what you're talking about." And with that, Sara glided out of Hermione's room, giggling harder than ever.

This giggling caused the sense of suspicion currently resting in the pit of Hermione's stomach to heighten even more, so she decided to properly question her cousins' friend. Hermione sat up fully, threw back the covers on her bed, and got up. At least, tried to get up.

Her body certainly wanted to heave itself from the bed, but couldn't. Upon inspection of this problem, Hermione let out a groan of disgust as she discovered that her entire backside was bathed in a full layer of a thick, sticky substance: Super Glue.

"SARA!" Hermione yelled. In return, Hermione heard the mischievous friend of her cousins laugh her head off, along with her cousins.

Hermione then began to struggle as she attempted to free herself from the sticky trap. It took quite a while to do so, but once Hermione finally managed to come lose from the glue, she both felt and heard the seat of her pajama pants rip completely. The struggling had caused some of the glue to get on Hermione's back and even on her front just a little, and now that she stood at the foot of her bed, partially covered in glue and with the seat of her pajama pants now nonexistent on the rest of the piece of clothing, Hermione spotted an open can of Wiz-Glue by her now open door. Obviously, this indicated that the little brats had come prepared.

Now furious, Hermione stormed toward the door and walked out into the hallway, but was immediately met with an onslaught of what she could only assume was more Wiz-Glue, given its thickness. However, that wasn't all. Once the glue attack had ceased, a downpour of many small and extremely light objects came from above Hermione. The lightness of these things that were raining over her made Hermione think of feathers, and the moment she opened her eyes, her suspicions were confirmed. Not only was Hermione covered in Wiz-Glue, but tons of feathers also stuck to her. This was an old-fashioned Muggle prank if there ever was one.

The triumphant laughter of her tormentors once again caused Hermione's temper to slowly build, and she assumed that if she could see herself properly without the layer of glue impeding the view of her normal skin, she would be red with anger.

"Don't you just love magic?" came the half-laughing, half-taunting voice of Sara.

"When I get my hands on you, I'm..." Hermione was abruptly cut off.

"That won't be happening anytime soon," said Jack as he held up Hermione's wand. "It's a simple matter of logic. Whoever has the wand has the power. And seeing as we have your wand, we're the ones with the power...and we're so eager to exert that power over you for as long as possible."

He was right. Since Hermione's cousins possessed her wand, Hermione herself was greatly outmatched in terms of conquering these pranks. This meant only one thing.

"Don't doubt for a minute that I won't find a way to get my wand back, because I will."

"Really?" said Anna in mock-amusement.

"Yes. And when I do, you're going to deeply regret ever using it against me!"

"Well, we'll just see about that. As long as there's four of us and one of you, the possibility of you regaining your wand is slim to none."

This remark got no response from Hermione, merely a scowl of deepest loathing.

"So," continued Cody, "in the meantime...have fun in the shower."

As her cousins and Sara started back up with their laughter, Hermione angrily trudged back into her room, where there was her own bathroom where she could for the second time in two days clean a collection of gunk off of her; she was certain that there would be plenty more of the same occasions in the near future. But as she did so, Hermione began formulating possible means which she could use to get her wand back. And she intended to try and do so today.

However, if all else failed, Hermione had firmly settled on a backup plan: call in the help of Harry to help deal with the four little monsters currently under her care.

--

A few hours had passed since the first prank of the day, and in that time, Hermione hadn't seen that much of the kids. Not that she wasn't complaining about the relatively peaceful morning, but it still made Hermione suspicious of what they were up to. When she had ventured upstairs to the rooms they were staying in, Hermione discovered that one room was completely empty and the other had its door shut. Hermione attempted to lean against it in order to hear what was going on, but found that she couldn't hear a thing. So, she then tried twisting the doorknob to check if the door was locked, but was instantly thrown backward from an invisible force. Obviously, they had placed not only a silencing charm on the door, but also one that repelled any unwelcome intruders.

It was clear that she couldn't get her wand back just yet, so Hermione retreated back downstairs to wait until her cousins and Sara showed themselves again.

While Hermione was waiting for them to come out of their room, her fear that they were planning even more pranks against her mounted. She knew that she must try to fight back, to show her babysittes that she could play their game as well. However, the only problem was that Hermione knew nothing about pranking. Sure, she had put up with her fair share of practical jokes courtesy of Fred and George over the years and even helped planned some to pull on Malfoy on one or two occasions, but Hermione had no idea where to begin in the planning stages. But one thing was for certain: she had to learn...and fast.

Finally, after what seemed like centuries, Hermione heard a door open upstairs and pairs of feet shuffle down the stairs. Within seconds, Sara and Hermione's three cousins came into the living room.

"We're hungry," said Cody.

Hermione was slightly slumped in an armchair, where she had been watching television. She checked her wristwatch, which read 12:15, about time for lunch. No doubt they expected her to make something for them.

"It's lunchtime," Anna said in a voice that made it sound as if she thought Hermione couldn't make the connection.

Hermione sighed as she straightened herself in the chair. "Sandwiches sound alright?" Hermione wasn't particularly in the mood to make something that required a lot of work.

"Yes," they all said in unison, which made Hermione suspicious, but only for a moment. She then proceeded to walk into the kitchen, the kids trailing close behind her.

For the next few minutes, Hermione busied herself with setting the table with placemats and glasses of juice, then stood at the kitchen counter as she made an assortment of different sandwiches, relative to the varying tastes of her cousins and Sara. There was the most Common, peanut butter and jelly, and others including: peanut butter and banana, turkey and mayonnaise, cheese and mustard, and a grilled cheese sandwich. Once all of these sandwiches were ready, Hermione walked over to the dining table and placed them in front of their recipients.

But as Hermione went to get her own drink, the kids sprung into action behind her back. While Hermione still had her back turned to them, the kids took the messiest sandwiches, opened them and put them face-up on the seat of Hermione's pushed-out chair. The instant Hermione turned around, they all turned what was left of their own sandwiches upside down to conceal the fact that half of all of them were missing.

To make sure that Hermione's attention was diverted elsewhere when she sat down, her cousins started to pretend to fight.

"Can't I just have a bite of yours?" Jack asked Cody in mock pleading.

"No!" Cody snapped back just as convincingly. "You can eat your own!"

"Hermione! Tell him to leave me alone!"

"Boys, cut it out," Hermione said as she lowered herself slowly into her seat, unaware of what awaited her in it. "I made you each the sandwiches you wanted, so I don't see what the fuss is."

Finally, Hermione's rear-end made contact with the awaiting sandwich pieces, and each substance spread across each slice of bread immediately started to seep through her jeans. Instead of leaping up straightaway, Hermione merely kept sitting there and closed her eyes in an attempt to quell her growing anger as Sara and her cousins giggled heartily around her. But, seconds later, Hermione found out that closing her eyes at this moment was not particularly the smart thing to do.

Hermione suddenly felt something gooey hit her square in the face and slowly drip off into her lap. This was followed by many more gooey things hitting her all over her body as she stood up; she felt most of the sandwich pieces still stuck to her backside. The gooey things that had pelted her in the face, stomach and even both her unmentionable places were obviously the left-over pieces of each sandwich. But that wasn't all. As Hermione wiped the sandwich goop away from her eyes, there came a relentless downpour of all the drinks from above. This made the third time in two days the kids had successfully managed to get Hermione extremely messy during the course of their pranks.

After calmly removing the sandwich pieces that still stuck to her butt, Hermione said through gritted teeth, "I'm going upstairs to change."

She trudged toward the stairs, climbed up them, and went into her room to change. After washing off in the shower, putting the dirty clothes into a full bathtub to soak and changing into fresh clothes, Hermione exited her room, cautious of her surroundings just in case the little brats suddenly jumped out at her.

The phone resting upon a small table in the hallway rang, causing Hermione to jump slightly, but she answered it.

"Hello?" Hermione said in the calmest voice she could summon up.

"Hello, dear," came the voice of Hermione's mother from the other end of the line. "How's everything going back at home?"

For the briefest of moments, Hermione was deeply tempted to spill the beans about what was really going on, but she knew that if she did, then most likely she would pay for it later.

"Um...fine. They're really enjoying their visit." Which, in essence, was a true thing.

"Well, that's wonderful! Are they behaving themselves?"

Hermione paused. "As well-behaved as you could hope for."

"Good. Listen, sweetheart, your father and I don't know how long we're going to be here at this conference; it could even last the whole summer because it's a series of different meetings. So we would suggest inviting a friend of yours over to help you out."

"I was thinking the same thing. So I'll ask Harry since he lives the closest."

"Alright. Well, if it's all going well, then keep on doing what you're doing and make sure everything stays under control. And, most importantly, have fun with your cousins. They've been longing to see you."

"Oh, believe me, we're having fun."

"Okay, bye sweetie. Love you."

"Love you more."

There was click on the other end of the line, and Hermione hung up. From her right, there came the sound of quick movement down the stairs. Hermione suspected that this was yet another ploy to get her into a trap again, but nonetheless decided to follow what she heard.

After descending the steps, Hermione looked around, and saw a flash of something dart into the living room. Making sure to be cautious with every step she took, Hermione made her way into the living room; she looked around to make sure nothing was waiting for her. Satisfied that there was indeed nothing, Hermione went in further. It was curiously quiet in the house, which meant only one thing: something was definitely going down.

It was then Hermione noticed that the door that led out onto the backyard patio was open, meaning that the kids were probably outside. This caused an idea to spring up inside Hermione's head. If she could get outside and somehow manage to creep up on the little brats, then there was a chance that Hermione could get her wand back. And so she proceeded to walk outside, barefoot, though it barely mattered to her if she had shoes on at all.

Hermione was now on the wooden patio, which had lounge chairs and small tables upon it, and she crept down the stairs connected to said patio as if she feared that her hiding adversaries could hear her. However, if Hermione had been more observant, she would have noticed Jack silently slipping back inside the house, closing and locking the door behind him.

Unwary of what had just happened, Hermione passed by the part of the patio that had open space underneath it; open space where Anne and Sara were currently hiding and waiting. The moment Hermione walked by their spot, the two girls leaped from the shadows and tackled Hermione to the grass.

Hermione, of course, struggled but she wasn't strong enough to overpower two girls who were on top of her. After a few moments of wrestling around, Sara and Anne managed to grab hold of Hermione; Anne by the arms and Sara by the legs, and began to carry her around to the front of the house. Hermione had no idea what they were about to do, but she did know that whatever it was they were planning to do to her, it wasn't good.

A few seconds later, Hermione found out exactly what they were about to do. Sara and Anne were hauling her toward an open garbage can, which Hermione knew was filled with filthy garbage seeing as it was the day before the garbage trucks drove through the neighborhood to collect the trash from every house. At that very moment, the two younger girls hauled Hermione up into the air as high as they could, poising their victim precariously over the garbage can. The stench of the trash inside was powerful enough to reach their nostrils.

"Don't you even –..." Hermione began, but was cut off by her being tossed inside.

Immediately, Hermione felt different bits of disgusting garbage get all over her, and stood up, climbed out, and began to chase the two girls into the backyard.

But the instant Hermione set foot in the backyard, she found herself locked out of the house once Sara and Anne were safely inside.

"Let me in, you little brats!" She pounded hard on the door.

"Let yourself in," Cody replied slyly.

Hermione grunted in frustration and backed away from the door, getting an idea. She raced over to the open kitchen window and hoisted herself up, slowly wriggling her way inside. However, when she was partially through, the window abruptly closed down on her, trapping Hermione midway. Hermione twisted around, but soon discovered that was a bad idea.

She was immediately rewarded with a face-full of whipped cream, followed by her having her shirt pulled up over her head, revealing her bra. The little brats even went so far as to spray more whipped cream where they shouldn't have.

That's it! Hermione thought to herself. I'm calling Harry.