Cleaning a house full of dark magic is not fun, Ron decided. Hermione had to wrestle an enchanted rug away from trying to strangle him, and as she and Ginny both sat on it and George tried every way he could think of to make it stop attacking, Ron came to this conclusion. Not a fun way to spend the afternoon. "Why does this always happen to me?" he groaned as it managed to dump the girls and made another beeline for him.
Hermione was not a fan of disorder, and ordinarily leaving a mess would bother her, but leaving this house disorderly would not. Watching a run attack Ron was really only amusing for a few seconds, and when it became apparent that it intended to kill him, well, it became very unamusing very quickly. And she did not enjoy sitting on it, it was like the amusement park ride from hell.
She vaguely wondered where Harry and George were, but didn't have much time to ponder as the rug made another attempt at Ron.
Harry and one of the twins, he didn't really know or care which, had escaped cleaning duty. Mrs. Weasley needed someone to make lunch for everyone while she was at yet another Order meeting that Harry wasn't allowed to attend, and had grabbed the first two arms she could reach, dragged their owners into the kitchen, pointed at a pile of food, and left.
He was chopping what felt like the millionth carrot, but was probably only the dozenth or so. But still, how many people were planning on eating here? They had enough food to feed a small army.
They worked together in silence, punctuated only by the sound of the knife hitting the cutting board and Harry's increasingly frequent sniffles. Fred shot him a few concerned glances, but didn't say anything until Harry moved away from the counter and coughed loudly.
"You alright?" Fred tried to make eye contact, but Harry deftly avoided it as he had for the entire day.
"I'm bloody brilliant," he snapped. Fred didn't believe him but knew that it wasn't worth arguing over, and did his best to ignore Harry's obvious bad health as they cooked.
Groaning after his sixth sneeze in as many minutes, Harry glanced around the kitchen for something to blow his nose into, and Fred tried once again to offer sympathy to him.
"Wouldn't you rather come sit by the fire where it's warm?" he asked, gesturing to the blazing fireplace.
"No." Ordinarily Harry would have shown gratitude or embarrassment, maybe both, at Fred's gesture of sympathy. But not today. Today he showed nothing but anger. "I said I was fine, didn't I?
Feeling brave, Fred piped up once again. "Yeah, but mate, you're sniveling all over the food."
"Well if I could fix it I would!" Harry snapped. "But seeing as I can't, why don't you just shut up?"
Fred didn't rise to the bait. Ordinarily he would have fought back, but he did not.