(This chapter's "Astute Fan" award goes to Nalini213. Congratulations! See bottom for details on your prize!)
Chapter 20: Operation Goldenrod
Only when both girls were breathing deeply and evenly, with their wrists bonelessly flopping back to the mattress when lifted and dropped, did Ginny feel safe Disapparating. She had once been fooled by her oldest son in the matter of his being asleep, and that had resulted in an explosion that had nearly demolished the house. She had no wish to be tricked again.
She Apparated into the middle of an argument.
"You did NOT tell me what this thing was going to do!" shouted Percy at two of his brothers.
Who both looked, as far as Ginny could see, exactly like him.
She stared around the room.
Percy seemed to have multiplied himself by six. Her father and Remus looked bemused, her mother and Minerva amused, and her sisters-in-law confused.
Oh Merlin. Fred and George must have modified the Metamorphmagus Mints.
Those poor Muggles.
One of the Percys was standing by the wall with his arm around Penelope, wearing a very smug expression. That's probably the real one. Two others were bending over the floor plans. Bill and Charlie, I bet. Which leaves Ron to be yelling at the twins, which makes sense. Percy would never actually be that rude.
"Nor did you tell me," said a voice from a figure in the corner of the room, a voice filled with annoyance, a voice Ginny knew far too well. She had taken six years of lessons with its owner, missing out on a seventh only due to the man's untimely death.
What the... who is that?
"We thought you read it on the timetable, mate," one of the twin-Percys said in a shaking voice. Ginny suspected it was shaking from suppressed laughter, not from fear.
"I thought that said 'snake'!" snapped the man. "I had no idea it meant – this." He turned around, and Ginny covered her mouth as she realized the truth. Harry – that's Harry – it must be, there's no one else missing – oh no, no, not even the twins would do this to him...
But, quite obviously, they had.
"We wanted something menacing," said the other twin-Percy, plaintively. "And you're not really that menacing, Harry. No offense."
"And he was," said the first twin-Percy. Ginny had to agree. Her husband had loathed the person whose face and form he now wore, and the feeling had been mutual, but the man had practically written the book on menacing. "Go on, Harry, give it a try-out."
"You want a try-out, Mr. Weasley?" hissed that familiar, oily voice. "I thought you were a prefect, yet you play foolish pranks. So now you are going to pay." The dungeon-pale hand reached into a pocket of his billowing robes and pulled out his wand. "And since I can't tell you apart from your brothers at the moment, I will simply have to curse all of you. So I suggest you run. All of you. Now."
All six Weasleys took off, wearing identical expressions of panic, dodging around the room and trying to avoid the hexes Harry sent after them. Everyone else surrendered unconditionally to hysterical laughter, except Ginny's father, who was regaining his composure every few moments long enough to take pictures before resuccumbing.
Ginny made a mental note to ask for a print. A photograph of six copies of her brother Percy being hexed by an irate Severus Snape was just too precious to resist.
Especially if you knew Snape was really Harry.
Seamus and Dean ought to consider themselves paid from this one photo alone.
-----
After he had caught all the Weasleys with jinxes, Harry consented to show off his new form. With a little snap of his right hand, he made his cloak flip outward dramatically as he strode across the room, directly to Minerva McGonagall.
"Minerva," he breathed. "One of your students has caused a... disturbance in my class. He threw a firework into another student's cauldron, allowing one of his accomplices to sneak into my office and steal potion ingredients. I demand that he be expelled immediately."
"Really now, Severus," said Minerva, keeping her face calm with what must be a mighty effort, Ginny thought. "Do you have any proof of this?"
"I saw it happen!" insisted Harry-Snape in a virulent hiss.
"Very well," said McGonagall in a slightly strained voice. "A name, if you would, Severus. I'm not Sybil after all."
"Potter." The voice seemed to linger over the name, promising worlds of trouble for the one he spoke of.
"Harry, that was you?" Minerva asked, startled into dropping the act. "I remember that. It was your second year, wasn't it?"
"Yes," Harry said in Snape's voice. "It was Miss Granger who stole ingredients for a Polyjuice Potion. Which she brewed correctly, I might add. But that does not change the seriousness of the offense."
Minerva shook her head in disbelief. "Is that how you ended up in hospital with whiskers and a tail?" she asked Hermione, who nodded, blushing furiously. "A Polyjuice transformation with animal fur used. There are some things a witch was simply not meant to know..."
"The moon is rising," Remus said into the awkward silence which followed. "We should get ready."
"Right," said the Percy whom Ginny suspected was Ron. "Is Fleur back yet?"
"Yes, 'ere I am," said Fleur, entering the room with her nine-month-old son Gabriel in her arms. "Ze baby, 'e was fussy, and I thought, I can play ze beautiful angel-mother in ze school full of devils, no?"
"Oh, yes," said Harry-Snape, stalking forward. "I think you will make an excellent addition to our plans, my dear."
The second perfect photo of the night was the shock and horror on Fleur's face as she saw Harry's new look.
"Er, right then," said Ron-Percy, looking uncomfortable, as Fleur finished scolding Harry-Snape in French. "Let's have a final review..."
The pranksters had been divided into pairings based on ability and attributes. Harry and Remus would work together, giving the Muggles the impression that the werewolf did what the scary-looking vampire man told it to do. Ron and Charlie, Bill and Percy, and Fred and George were the Weasley pairs – their missions were simply to cause chaos by seeming to be in three places at once. As Molly said, "The twins used to manage it all by themselves, I'm sure all of you can do an excellent job."
Molly's personal mission was to keep a watch on Arthur as he tinkered with the fascinating machines to be found all over the school. Ginny felt rather sorry for anyone who tried to use them after her father was done with them. Molly had also claimed the right to hex each of the Dursleys at least once over the course of the night.
The women had flatly refused to change their appearances, so they would be working with their beauty and spell-casting abilities alone. Hermione and Penelope were partnered, as were Angelina and Alicia. Fleur was a lone agent with plans of her own, mostly involving the male professors. Ginny and Minerva in their Animagus forms would be runners, keeping everyone updated on the progress of everyone else and helping out wherever necessary.
"Places, everyone," said Ron-Percy. "Operation Goldenrod commences in five minutes."
Within seconds, the room was empty.
-----
Marcie Dursley sat bolt upright and clutched at her head with both hands. Hair, her own plain simple ordinary hair.
She tried to force herself to relax, but her heart was hammering faster than ever after a look at her watch. They said it would begin at night. It's almost nine o'clock now...
There were footsteps in the hallway.
Dudley, a vast vague shape in a chair by her bedside, grunted a snore, then yelped as someone slammed the door open.
The lights in the room flickered to life.
Two identical people were revealed in the doorway, red-haired, supercilious-looking men wearing horn-rimmed glasses and loose blue robes, who stared at her as if she were the scum of the earth. Marcie was acutely aware that she'd been sleeping in her clothes and her hair was in disarray. Dudley looked horrified.
"Well, come on," said one of them in a bored voice.
"You don't want to miss the grand opening," said the other in the same tone.
Marcie discovered, to her dismay, that her body was obeying them, even as her mind shrieked No! No! She moved out the door between them, Dudley in front of her, and walked down the hall with them behind her, feeling very much as if she were walking into a nightmare.
She saw the Headmaster – Lutch was his name, she thought – and a female professor scurrying down a side hallway and falling into line behind her, propelled by two women in black robes and pointed hats. Witches. Witches and wizards and magic. This is a nightmare.
Chester came barreling out of another side hallway, gasping for breath. "Mum, Mum, she said she'd give me pig's ears! Make her stop!"
A grandmotherly woman with a "no nonsense" demeanor, robed in green, stepped out of the hallway behind him. Marcie covered her son's mouth and gave the woman a sickly smile. The woman folded her arms; she looked singularly unimpressed.
There were others joining their parade now, other professors, some of the students, most of them so stunned they walked quietly. A few protested, until one of the identical men jabbed a stick in their direction and said something Latin-sounding. The resulting total silence was unnerving.
Marcie stiffened her back. I refuse to give in to scare tactics. I will not let them frighten me.
Then they reached the main staircase of the school, and she forgot her resolve and simply gaped.
A man stood on nothing at all in the middle of the atrium, his eyes level with her own, with what looked like another man crouched at his feet. The standing man, though, had everyone's attention. Tall, black-haired and pale, with a hooked nose and dark eyes, he would have been a movie-maker's dream come true to star in a vampire film. He was looking around and smiling in a self-satisfied manner. It was the scariest thing Marcie had ever seen.
One of the red-haired men whispered a word Marcie didn't understand. She jumped as something roared like a lion directly behind her. Other roars answered from all around the rim of the stairwell, where white-faced, shaking people stood gaping with stern-looking robed figures at their backs.
"We are ready, then," the pale man said, with such utterly perfect diction that Marcie felt she could be skewered on his words. "Good." He reached down to stroke the thing beside him and whisper a few words to it.
"You are here," he began, staring at each of them in turn, "because all of you are guilty of one of the most heinous of crimes. You have harmed a child." Lutch flinched from the man's eyes. "Or by your deliberate inaction allowed one to come to harm." The female professor cowered back.
"We are not a vengeful people," he continued, his eyes boring into Dudley, who looked as if he wanted to sink through the floor. "Therefore, no one will be physically hurt tonight. Unless," and his glare struck Marcie full-force, "one of you decides to do something stupid, like attacking us. We will not hesitate to defend ourselves."
The figure at his feet growled.
"It is time. Let the games begin!"
The crouching thing sprang upright. It was a man, but a man obviously in anguish. He was shaking all over, his body was writhing and twisting –
And suddenly there was no man there at all, but a huge, monstrous wolf. It raised its snout to the ceiling and howled, a sound of fury and despair.
"Run if you will," the pale man said sneeringly into the silence that followed the howl. "Run if you will, but you cannot hide. We will find you. Justice will be served tonight."
All the lights went out for a moment. When they came back on, Lutch was unconscious, Dudley was hyperventilating, and Chester was huddled up on the floor sucking his thumb, something he hadn't done for years.
The strangers were nowhere to be seen.
-----
"What did you say to Remus?" Minerva asked Harry-Snape as the pranksters regrouped momentarily at home base.
" 'This is ridiculous.' "
"I'm aware of that. What did you say?"
"That is what I said."
"Ah."
The werewolf rolled his eyes and snorted a laugh.
-----
(A/N: Hold on tight, everyone! We are officially under way!
Lady Cinnibar: Stuff happens. This is my last update on a shared computer, since I'll be back to school by Wednesday. And now you know. Moral of the story – never eat anything the Weasley twins give you. ::big grin::
gallandro-83: Sorry to disappoint. Hope this is better. Harry couldn't tell Marie because he didn't know – the London team had just gotten back when he left – and Ginny needed to get the girls to sleep right away, so telling Marie another exciting and troubling piece of news wouldn't have helped. She'll find out soon enough, never you worry. And no comment on the matter of Harry being an Animagus.
Nalini213: You guessed the snake-Snape trick! Major points to you! Also, for your excellent work with names, the "Name Game" prize is officially yours. What would you like your character named?
Kraeg001: Nope, sorry, coincidence. Thanks for the compliments, though!
emikae: I remember my "living by the computer" days. Mothers never like anything, do they?
Gyre: Hope you like this – mucho pranks still to come!
athenakitty: In order: probably only as a really bad dream – no comment, but you're the runner-up for the "Astute Fan" award for this question – all night, but sporadically – unlikely, but possible. Most people had never thought of Dudley having magical children, right?
Annikaya: You are so right... satisfied? ::grin::
Joshua: Sorry, dude, no Hogwarts in this story. Hogwarts in the sequel, and the sequel will go up very soon after Home ends. Keep reading, and think about athenakitty's second question!
Tanydwr, Manderlin, Luver19, Caprice-Ann HedicanKocur, RunningInCircles, harryp123: Thank you all!
Keep R&Ring! Love everyone!)