Chapter 4: The Exploding Room

It was nice to be back in The Burrow, the day's shopping scattered all over in Ron's blatantly orange room since both had been too tired to do any packing. It was hot and stuffy tonight— almost unbearably so, even after Harry had kicked off his covers—and the ghoul in the attic was making noisy clunking noises again almost as if in tune with the cicadas outside the window. Harry didn't really mind though. Compared to his old cot in the cupboard under the stairs with its sinister creaks and thumping footsteps belonging to an over-weight Dudley, this was heaven.

"Are you still awake?" Ron's voice came through the darkness.

"Yeah."

"Sorry about the ghoul."

"It's alright, actually." No, there are more important things than raucous unwanted house-guests. Such as why I was crackling like tinfoil back at the museum and why I'm starting to feel it here as well.

"More of those dreams?" Ron asked hesitatingly.

"Nah, haven't had them for a while now."

Ron cleared his throat.

"There's something I thought I ought to tell you." Ron said.

"What is it?" There was silence for such a long time that Harry thought Ron might have fallen asleep.

"I've been made Quidditch Captain." Ron finally replied.

"That's great!" Harry said, grinning in the dark at Ron. "Congratulations."

"Are you sure?" Ron asked nervously. "I mean, you're the youngest Seeker in a century and I was only a reserve last year..."

"But you know more about Quidditch then I do, and you're good at strategising." Harry pointed out. "Besides, I could barely understand those plays Wood or Angelina used to explain with the squiggly lines and stuff."

"Then how have you been playing all this while?"

"Instinct I suppose." Harry said sheepishly.

Ron made an exasperated and extremely agitated noise.

"Quidditch practice tomorrow." He said firmly.

"Yes, Captain." Harry grinned.

Then Harry felt a distinct jolt of electricity ripple through the air, hitting him so suddenly he nearly yelped out in surprise. Over the racket the ghoul was making, he heard a muffled boom in the direction of the twins' room, like something had blown up while it was in a container. Harry relaxed. Just Fred and George experimenting again. Although it still doesn't explain why I should be feeling it like this.

"Anything strange happening?" Ron asked. Harry jumped a bit. "I mean after Kera…you know."

He could have kicked himself. Of course! Kera might know. He would just have to write to her as soon as he could.

"No, nothing's happening. Goodnight Ron."

"Goodnight Harry."

*~*~~*~**~*~*~~*

"Ladies and gentlemen…we are in the presence of greatness." Fred said solemnly as Ron and Harry made their way down the stairs for breakfast the next morning.

"Our ickle Rinney-Ronnie-kins all grown up now." George agreed, pretending to wipe away a tear.

"No more from the two of you." Mrs. Weasley scolded, dishing out eggs and bacon for the two boys and giving her youngest son a fond look. "At least I know that some of my children have been behaving themselves and making good use of their time."

"Mum!" Fred cried out, melodramatically placing a hand on over his heart. "How could you!"

"We slaved like house-elves over our homework, didn't we Fred?" George joined in.

"Entirely abandoned our friends." Fred agreed.

"Missed Quidditch practices."

"Forgot to take our meals."

"Moved our beds to the library."

"That's quite enough." Mrs. Weasley said primly, though unable to stop herself from smiling at their antics.

"You'll be joining us for Quidditch later?" Ron asked his brothers.

"Yeah, sure." Fred nodded, chewing on another slice of toast.

"But we're taking Harry somewhere first."

"What is it?" Harry asked, hurriedly finishing the rest of his eggs.

"We've got something to show you." George said, pushing Harry in front of him and up the stairs.

"We thought our main sponsor should have a look at what we've been doing with your investment." Fred whispered, grinning.

"Hey! How come he gets to see your stuff and I don't? Wait up!" Ron called out, hurrying behind his brothers.

"Bothersome little kid." George snorted, ruffling his younger brother's flaming hair.

If Harry had ever found it hard to sleep in Ron's room because of the colour-scheme, he reckoned the twins' room would have given him permanent insomnia. It seemed that the twins, in an—even for them—unusually exuberant mood, had just gone about randomly spelling the wallpaper with various lurid coloured splashes.

"Remind me to get some muggle shade-glasses the next time I come in here." Ron muttered.

Their room was in a mess…an organised mess, if one could call it that. There were bottles of strangely coloured potions all over the tables and packets of dried herbs and spices overflowing from the drawers. Rows and rows of glass bottles were randomly stacked on the shelves with labels like "Basilisk Scales", "Billywig Stings" and "Medusa Grass". And then there were the cauldrons—some steaming and bubbling with strange but edible-smelling liquids, others half empty and still smoking, and a few containing things he bet would result in creations that would surely make the top of Filch's list of items not allowed in the castle. It was like walking into some sort of medieval science laboratory, with pewter fixings instead of glass tubes. If Snape ever saw this, he'd probably have a fit, Harry thought, thinking of the potions master's orderly and dreary classrooms as he stared up at a number of large patches where something even Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess-Remover had been unable to get rid of had apparently exploded and got splattered on the ceiling.

Surprisingly, there was also a sizable stack of books on the floor just under an Appleby Arrows poster, and another stack of parchments scribbled full of sketches and ingredient lists on the desk near a window that looked out over the side of the house to the little river that flowed just past Ottery St. Catchpole.

"Mom's going to go spare when she sees this," Ron said, pointing out a huge spill that was soaking into the rough wooden planks that made up the floor.

"Oh hush," Fred said, rummaging in a nearby chest of drawers and coming up with a sack full of round-ish sweets. "We'll just move one of the beds over it."

"What are these?" Harry asked, picking up one of the brightly-wrapped candies a bit warily.

"Chameleon Comfits!" Fred announced proudly.

"Turns your hair to match whatever fabric is closest to your hair for an hour." George explained.

"We tried it on Percy when he was wearing that Ravenclaw scarf his girlfriend gave him." Fred said gleefully.

"Well, took us a while to get the potion quantities just right, but our dear Percy was kind enough to test it for us." George said innocently.

"You should have seen it." Ron chortled. "It turned Percy's hair blue for a week."

It took nearly an hour for Harry to try out the other strange and ingenious gadgets and candy the twins had come up with, from the relatively tame Snapping Pouches (to deter pickpockets) and Seemingly-Sarsaparilla Sticks (which smelled and tasted initially of sarsaparilla but would change to a rather foul petroleum-tasting substance without warning) to the rather hazardous but exciting Gobbling Gobstones, which would unexpectedly attempt to nip the players' fingers so hard they left a bruise. However, he wisely declined to try the Petrifying Pops or the Itchy Ink.

They had a Quidditch game after that with both players in each team doubling as Chasers and Keepers, and of course the two friends lost spectacularly to the twins, who worked so seamlessly it was like they could read each other's minds. Ron demonstrated all the plays he could think of and tried to explain the subtleties of the moves to Harry, who still didn't really understand but found it extremely interesting anyway. But the Quidditch practice after the match, on the other hand, made Harry wish he had eaten the Petrifying Pops after all and gotten himself out of it.

"You're almost as bad as Wood!" Harry groaned, collapsing on the floor of Ron's room, not caring that he was all sweaty from an afternoon out in the sun.

As it turned out, Ron's idea of "Seeker practice" had involved hurling Dungbombs at Harry to see if he could go faster and getting the twins to charm and release twenty golf balls at the same time to see if Harry could get them all before they hit the ground.

"Wimp." Ron snorted. "Well, you got all of them at the end, didn't you?"

"Easy for you to say." Harry muttered. "Where's Hermione anyway?"

"In Ginny's room I suppose." Ron said absent-mindedly as he rummaged through one of his pockets for something to eat.

Just then, there was a fumbling knock on the door and Hermione barged into their room with a heavy-looking and dusty tome in her arms, her eyes not really sparkling the way they always did when she had chanced upon another fascinating (to her, at least) titbit of information.

"I found this really detailed book on Morgan Le Fay on Ginny's shelves, and—"

"Oh that was from our sixth uncle." Ron said through a mouthful of chocolate.

"Who's this Morgan Le Fay again?" Harry asked.

"How can you not know who Morgan Le Fay is?" Hermione shrieked, perhaps slightly annoyed that the two boys kept interrupting her. "She might have caused the downfall of Camelot but she's one of the greatest sorcerers of all time! Even muggle children know her name!"

"Here, look at this," Ron said, stuffing the last of the chocolate frog into his mouth and handing Harry the card. "They call her Morgana sometimes."

"Oh. King Arthur's sister."

Hermione muttered disgustedly about overlooked women and turned the book towards the two boys so they could read properly.

"There," Hermione said, pointing at the drawing of two goblets in the book. "The Chalices of Morgan Le Fay."

"So there's a pair of them, then." Harry said, examining the picture.

"Yes. And you need a key to open them."

"Open what? It's not like they're chests, they're goblets!" Ron said.

"According to this book, each of the goblets will answer one question and only one question of any person who seeks it. The method to activate the goblets, however, has been lost to wizard-kind for centuries."

"So they're as good as useless now, right?" Ron said.

"And yet there was an Oblivator guarding one of them." Harry said thoughtfully. "Where's the other one anyway?"

"I don't know." Hermione said, frowning. "It's not mentioned in any of the books I've read so far."

"I think the two of you are just getting paranoid." Ron yawned, stretching out.

"But…" Hermione shut the book slowly.

"What is it?" Harry asked, surprised by the distress suddenly apparent on her face.

"I woke up to find Ginny tossing and turning. She was saying something about V-Voldemort." Hermione told them in a hushed whisper.

Harry was absently aware that Hermione was getting better at not tripping over the Dark Lord's name.

"You never should have let her tag along into the forest last year." Ron said harshly, his face suddenly fierce and hard.

There was a period of uncomfortable silence as Harry and Hermione exchanged guilty looks.

"It's not her fault." Harry said. "It's mine."

"Really?" Ron asked, his temper getting the better of him. "I can't blame you for rushing into things like you always do, Harry—you wouldn't be the same if you didn't. But she's supposed to be the voice of reason. Little Miss Thinks-Everything-Through-And-Worries-About-A-Dozen-Unnecessary-Things. Yet she didn't worry enough for Ginny the one time it mattered, did she?"

Hermione flinched as if Ron had slapped her.

"Hermione—"

But she had already picked up the book and was running down the rickety stairs, the tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

"What is the matter with you?" Harry fumed, standing up to go after Hermione.

A puzzled look flickered over Ron's face.

"I don't know." He said, stricken as if he had just realised what he'd done. He got up to go after her, but thought better of it. "Go after 'Mione for me, please?" He asked anxiously.

Confused and disturbed by Ron's behaviour, Harry simply nodded and sprinted down the stairs with a sense of foreboding.

[A/N: I love Fred and George *grins* The most Slytherin-ish Gryffindors around.

Percy's room is on the 2nd landing, while Ginny's is on the 3rd. Ron's is right under the attic, right at the top, and it's on the 5th. I'm putting the twins' room on the 4th.

A comfit is a candy with a piece of fruit/nut inside. I was just looking for something to alliterate without using the word "candy". The Petrifying Pops on the other hand do not belong to me. They are from R. J. Anderson's Darkness and Light Trilogy.

Recne den eres: thank you for taking the time to review. *grins* Nah, probably isn't that people aren't reading, more like people are usually too lazy to review *mock glares* (and since I'm one of those people, I shall not complain. LOL)]