Disclaimer: All you fan-fic readers know the drill by now. I'm not J.K so obviously I don't own Harry Potter (much as I'd like to), BUT I do own this plot. Well, the bits of it that the voices in my head aren't dictating...
Harry Potter and the Time of Trials
Chapter 4: A Wheeze and a Setback
Now that Weasleys Wizard Wheezes was up and running with a proper shop and everything, Harry had noticed that Mrs Weasley was much more tolerant of the emissions and explosions which regularly were seen and heard coming from the twins room. If nothing else, the lack of a highly vocal response to the explosion earlier made this clear to him. Harry was also taking a much more active role than anyone other that he and the twins knew. When he was not working on his holiday essays and readings, or writing to his friends he had been devising new ideas for Wheezes, usually based on some of his more elaborate revenge on Dudley fantasies. With all the new knowledge that he was gaining from his extra study these got more and more imaginative by the day. When he had first tentatively wrote to the twins the response had been wildly enthusiastic. As the chief investor in their enterprise he was already highly placed in the twins esteem. The day he sent them his plans for 'Just Desserts' a charm that could be applied to various food stuffs, which would transmute the eater into that food - Oh to see Dudley the walking talking chocolate bar!!! Although he'd probably start eating himself... - along with instructions on how it could be altered to last for varying amounts of time, they sent him a reply congratulating him on his position being upped from investor to full partner in their business. At his request they changed this to a full silent partner, and from this point on ideas had flowed back and forth regular as clockwork.
The one thing about going to see their presentation that had really worried Harry was getting away from Ron and Hermione without raising suspicion. However, now, as he left the living room, where they had all been talking he was confident that his presence would not be missed for some time. He even had a reasonable excuse if they did become suspicious, Harry reflected. He took one last look back at the two happily ensconced in yet another of their familiar blazing rows, this time about whether Herbology would be an important subject to take for the NEWTS. He shook his head wonderingly as he left the room.
Harry walked up the stairs to the twins room. He was particularly looking forward to this 'audience' with the twins as they had told him that they had finished their initial testing on his brainchild. Final testing on human subjects was going to be attempted as soon as possible. Almost definitely on Percy, who the twins were particularly irked by because of his betrayals of his family the previous year, which thus made him first choice as Wheeze 'guinea-pig.' Percy's distracted method of eating meant that this would be even easier. Harry had yet to see Percy without some paperwork on hand that, or so Percy told them, couldn't wait a moment longer to be looked over or written up. Arriving at the twin's door Harry debated the wisdom of touching anything belonging to the twins before he decided that it was worth the risk, and knocked firmly on the door.
"So," Harry questioned them when the door had opened and he had been ushered into their room, "what was it that you were working on this afternoon? That blue smoke took forever to go away." Before they could start to answer Harry took a look around.
If Harry had thought that Ron's room was bright with its vivid orange colour scheme, seeing the twins room made it dull in comparison. Their lurid green dragonskin jackets, hanging on the ends of their beds, which had stood out so garishly when the twins had greeted the Hogwarts Express seemed merely to blend into the background in this cacophony of colour. Electric blue walls struggled for dominance against the hot pink ceiling and iridescent yellow carpet. To one side were two beds, one with a bright purple quilt on it, the other scarlet. Harry idly wondered if any of it glowed in the dark while his eyes adjusted to the sight. Somehow, he wasn't sure how, the colour scheme worked.
Snapping out of it Harry looked over at the twins who were on the other side of their room, the side where they obviously did their work. Identical grins were regarding him with amusement.
Seeing that they had his attention George answered Harry's question. "New product. At least it will be a new product when we work out how to stop it going off before we want it to." His grin turned rueful.
"Basically," Fred elucidated, "its an alarm system. A way of stopping people from mucking about where they aren't supposed to be."
"It's keyed to certain people, so that they can approach and do what they want, but anyone the alarm doesn't recognise..."
"Gets blown up and turned blue?" Harry extrapolated, thinking of the explosion earlier.
"Pretty much, except that the smoke is supposed to flash and they're supposed to be stopped too. Completely frozen until a person who IS keyed to the alarm turns it off."
"Means that the thief is stopped, caught and identified. And as we're going to use it on our shop we can then adjust the wards to not let them so much as enter. It'll be pretty good..."
"...when we sort out the bugs."
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The twins showed Harry around their room, demonstrating a few new products they had finished and showing him some of the others that were in it the development and testing stages. As a finale they showed him the first completed prototype of 'Just Desserts.'
"We thought long and hard about what we were going to use to test this..."
"...and finally we decided to use it on a competitor's product. Just this once though, as a test. In honour of our slimy, treacherous, snake of a brother," Harry guessed they were talking about Percy, "who is going to be testing it we decided to go with that old Honeydukes favourite, the Cockroach Cluster."
Harry, who was still annoyed with Percy over his actions of the previous year had no problem with this.
"When?" Harry asked them expectantly.
"Breakfast tomorrow, we'll have to be up early as he's planning on being at work early."
"It'll be worth it though. Also, just in case Mum cottons on to your involvement you should know the escape plan."
Fred waited for a dramatic moment before divulging the plan. "Run. We," he indicated his twin and himself, "will provide a distraction and Apparate away..."
"...to the store, so you will have to find a good spot to hide, probably best if it's inside though, as we'll have to get away from the Burrow to Apparate. Then wait till Mum calms down. Shouldn't be too long though... she likes you."
"Alright. We should probably wrap this up. We don't want anyone getting suspicious. Even Ron will notice if you've disappeared for to long."
As he was preparing to head back out, this reminded Harry of something he had meant to tell the twins.
"One thing before I go. I think it may be a little to late. I reckon Ginny suspects something." Harry quickly outlined what he had seen at breakfast.
The twins looked at each other as if having a quick, silent conversation.
"It should be OK," George said conclusively. "Gin's alright, she'll keep her mouth shut. I reckon we need to have a talk to her about upholding the troublemaking traditions for the family anyway."
"We were thinking about getting her more actively involved anyhow, so this all works well."
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When Harry woke the next morning the sky was just beginning to show the first orange hint of dawn. He sat up and stiffled a yawn before trying to wake up Ron.
Ron muttered something illegible, turned over and resumed snoring. He tried again with a similar result. Harry decided it was a lost cause.
"Your loss," he told his slumbering friend.
He got dressed and headed down the stairs. Passing by Ginny's room he could hear someone moving around inside.
"No," a voice inside the room said inexplicably. It sounded irritated. He looked at the door for a moment before shaking his head and hurrying on. At the foot of the stairs the twins were waiting for him.
"You got here just in time." Fred greeted him.
"Remember the plan?" Harry nodded. "Alright, lets get this done."
Mrs Weasley was already up, and the smell of breakfast cooking left drove the last residues of sleep from Harry's mind. She looked up as they entered.
"Good morning boys, what has you up so early?"
"Going over to the shop early." George told her.
"Got to get ready for the 'Back to school' rush. It's going to be really busy."
Harry thought in vain for a plausible excuse. "I woke up, and couldn't really get back to sleep." It sounded weak to his ears, but Mrs Weasley seemed happy to accept it.
The three settled over at the table, the twins flanking their unsuspecting older brother, and Harry as near to the way to the stairs as possible. Mr Weasley was not there. From what Harry could gather he had been away on Order business the night before and was sleeping in as he had organised to have the day off.
Percy reached absently for a piece of toast, but kept his face firmly hidden behind the paper he was reading. The twins noting this waited until their mother had turned back to her cooking and put the specially treated sweet on top of the toast pile.
Percy muttered something about incompetence and made a scribbled note. Harry watched as he finished his piece of toast and reached for another. He held his breath as Percy lifted the Cockroach Cluster to his mouth and took a big bite.
The effect was almost instantaneous. One moment Percy was just Percy and the next he was a Percy shaped Cockroach Cluster, mouth hanging open in shock at his sudden transformation. The papers slipped through his fingers and hit the table.
The sound alerted Mrs Weasley who turned around, took one look at Percy, one look at the three boys desperately tying not to laugh and exploded in fury.
"What have you three done?!!"
Harry gaped for a second, but the twins moved in front of Harry and stepped instantly into action.
"Our new Wheeze, Mum."
"What do you think?" George asked her while furiously gesturing behind his back for Harry to move.
Harry bolted up the steps to the sound of more fury and then the unmistakable sound of the twins throwing open the door and sprinting to the closest point where they could Apparate. Although Harry could hear Mrs Weasley following her sons, he was sure that at any moment she would be after him, so Harry bolted up the stairs trying to work where he could hide for however long it would take for her to calm down.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid." He said to himself as he came to another landing.
The door in front of him opened without warning. A pair of hands grabbed him and pulled him inside, before closing the door behind him. Harry turned to thank his rescuer.
It was Ginny. She looked as though she planned to ask him something. She even managed to start with "what's going..." but suddenly the images in his mind were back, and stronger than ever. The room span as Harry tried vainly to push them back, to hide from them, anything. He fell over clutching his head.
Another person, Hermione he dimly realised, was kneeling in front of him. She was saying something, but he couldn't make it out over the memory of the pain.
Finally, with an effort he had feared would be beyond him, Harry banished the memory back into the dark recesses of his mind. Panting, he managed to make out the words of concern that Hermione was saying.
"Harry, what's wrong? Are you alright? Is it You-kno... Voldemort? Ginny, call your Mum, something's wrong with Harry."
"No, don't. It's alright, I'm alright. Don't call her, it's under control now." Harry realised he was babbling and stopped himself. Steeling himself, he looked over at Ginny and stood up. "See, all fine."
"No, Harry, your not alright," Hermione told him, clearly worried.
"Just don't call anyone. It's over, OK."
Not looking happy about it, Hermione reluctantly acquiesced, although from the glint in her eyes Harry summised that this was not the last he would hear from her on this. Hermione scented a mystery and there was no chance that she would let it rest indefinitely.
However now Harry became aware of another problem. The sounds of an angry Molly Weasley increased in volume as she climbed the stairs. Harry, remembering the reason for his hurried flight up only minutes before looked around desperately for an escape.
Ginny, fast picking up on the situation grabbed his arm and pushed him into her wardrobe, brown eyes full of questions.
"Hermione, watch the door," she ordered before turning to Harry. "What's going on," she whispered keeping one eye on Hermione.
"Percy was the victim of a new Wheeze a little while ago and your mother is under the impression that I'm involved." Harry explained quickly.
"Are you?" Ginny asked, before Hermione whispered a warning. The noise outside drew even with her floor and she quickly shut the door until it was clear that Mrs Weasley had kept on going up. The closet door re-opened.
"Kind of," Harry started.
They heard a door flung open and Mrs Weasley let out a roar. This was quickly followed by a loud thump, which Harry identified as Ron falling out of bed. Having verified that Harry was not there, the thudding footfalls started down again, stopping outside Ginny's door. Hermione gave them a look, then flung herself over toward her bed and picked up a book.
"Never mind now, tell me later."
The closet door closed firmly.
Harry closed his eyes and hoped for the best.
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Once again, Ginny's incredible ability to lie convincingly to her mother diffused a potentially nasty situation. She had calmed her mother, dismissing her suspicions that Harry had been any more than an amused bystander and convinced her that Harry wasn't anywhere nearby, all in a matter of minutes. Percy's reversion to his usual self in plenty of time for him to get to work on time had consolidated this, meaning that Harry was fairly sure that he would be safe if he went down for lunch a little later on. Fairly sure.
For now though, Harry, along with the girls and Ron had gathered in Ron's room, on the theory that discretion was the better part of valour, and that avoiding Mrs Weasley would be best until she had completely recovered.
"The problem," Ron explained to Harry and Hermione with Ginny's help, "is that Mum is afraid that Percy will go away again. She hated it that he was gone all of last year, that he had fought with Dad, and sent back his Christmas present."
"Percy's always been the responsible one, the one that she could rely on. Seeing him ally himself with the Ministry against the family... it was bad for us, but it was worse - much worse - for Mum."
"Mum never wants that to happen again. So whatever happened this morning, it brought those fears to the surface and she freaked out."
Harry felt a little bad about what he had been a part of, although only because of Mrs Weasley. He could still picture Percy with a warm feeling of satisfaction. With the others starting to question him, he kept his side of the bargain. Although he decided to keep just how deeply he was involved a secret for the moment.
"At breakfast the twins had Percy eat a Cockroach Cluster." Hermione looked disgusted, but Ron and Ginny just looked annoyed at having missed it. He hurried to continue, "Only it had been treated with something, and when Percy ate it, well..." Harry tried to think of a way to describe what he had seen. "He turned into a giant Percy shaped Cockroach Cluster." He tried not to laugh a the memory, "You had to be there. It was so funny."
"But how did you know to be there Harry?" Ron asked suspiciously. "And why didn't you wake me up, so I could have seen?"
Harry knew he was on thin ice here. He answered cautiously, "the twins told me to get up early yesterday, and I did try to wake you. Twice. Not my fault that you didn't want to wake up."
Ron did not look happy.
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Shall I shut up now?
A/N: In other news numbernintythreediagonalley.net looks to be finally up and running. In fact this should be there before it hits ff net, so visit there to see chapters of this fic before they show up here. You can also see ToT as it's meant to be, with centring (maybe) and italics (definitely) and different fonts (for sure) and underlining and everything else.
What were Hermione and Ginny doing up so early? Who said "No" and why? Was it just to help the plot along or is there a more sinister meaning? Am I resorting to FanFic clichés? Will Harry ever tell them whatever it was he wanted Ron to remind him of in the previous chapter? Will Ron ever remember to ask Harry what he wanted to tell them in the previous chapter? Will everyone learn of Harry's involvement with Weasley's Wizard Wheezes? Will anyone work out where the name I'm working under and my sig line come from? Will I ever stop these stupid questions? Apparently so. And don't forget to review, it's your way of making sure that I continue to write and post!