The Great Prank War of 1990

Disclaimer: I still don't own these characters, they belong to JK Rowling.

Author Notes: Reviews make people write (a) more often and (b) better. I fixed some mistakes from the original post, hopefully it reads better then it did before. I cannot allow myself to release something "not up to my usual standards." I couldn't find where I innappropriately used "their" for "there" though. I also narrowed down "food" to three occurances, I hope that's sufficient.

Chapter 2: Time Bomb

If one of Fred and George's friends saw the two menacing red-heads leaving Gryffindor Tower to head to their History of Magic class they would have known something was up judging by their mischievous grins which all but shouted "we've done something incredibly clever!" Also using the manic smiles as a basis, a friend would've known that the half-an-hour spent alone in Gryffindor Tower was not spent doing homework. Something bad was going to happen; it was inevitable.

Also, in that time frame, Fred and George's appearances grew far more frightening in a way that had nothing to do with their evil smiles – although they helped – and everything to do with the prank pulled on them earlier. Fred's polka-dotted face looked far uglier then it was previously, with the dots themselves growing darker as the background skin grew several shades paler making him look deathly ill the same way any old person looks like they are about to fall over and die at the slightest inclination. While George's blazing fire was even brighter and more impressive then before, now consuming his entire torso and spreading down his legs as they walked down the stairs toward class.

Both Fred and George were getting far too many Looks on their way to class and they, being Fred and George, decided to take advantage of their situation and get some enjoyment out of it.

"Make way!" George yelled down the hallway where people were attempting to hold conversations with each other, "Plague-ridden man heading to class!" Everyone squished against the sides and Fred and George watched the hallway part open like the Red Sea. They boldly and confidently walked down the middle as everyone watched them in fear of catching Fred's sickness.

In another hallway Fred shouted, "Everyone move! Raging inferno coming through!" and George ran down the hallway screaming in what appeared to be agony – it was a rather good demonstration of George's acting skills, too, if only a bit over the top. No one got in his way either.

By the time they reached Binns' classroom they were so exhausted from all the shouting and running around that they had to stop and catch their breath before they entered the room – leave it to Fred and George to turn going to class into a sport. They quietly opened the door and sneaked into their seats just as Binns' neared the end of roll call; perfect timing.

"Weasley, Fred," Professor Binns said without looking up from his attendance sheet.

"Here," said George

"Weasley, George."

"Here," said Fred.

"Good, good," Professor Binns said, "Everyone is here." He looked up for the first time and blinked at Fred and George, "Are you two all right?" he asked them.

"Certainly, Professor," a voice said somewhere deep within the fervid flames, "Why wouldn't we be?"

"Honestly, sir," said the corpse truthfully for a change, "We're perfectly fine." Usually the phrase 'honestly' is strictly used when lying.

"Oh, good. Well, anyway, today's class is about the Time Charm, which you all learned about in Charms last year. The spell allows the user to trigger an event after a certain delay so that he doesn't actually have to be around when the event happens. This spell ended up effecting history in various ways including . . . " he droned and went off on his lecture to the class without acknowledging any of the students' presences anymore.

After class the twins walked back up to Gryffindor Tower in hopes of convincing someone to go do something interesting with them for a while to ward off the boredom which threatened to take over the day.

When they finally arrived at the Fat Lady's painting after a long walk up George tiredly muttered the password, "Fortitude," and she swung wide to admit them after a brief comment about how sick Fred looked and that he should probably go to the Hospital Wing. Fred stoically ignored her.

They entered the room to find several people playing Exploding Snape – someone had bewitched the cards to have little pictures of the Professor on them – and others were attempting to do work but were failing miserably. "Anyone wanna do something?" Fred asked the room at large.

"We're bored," George added as an explanation.

Unfortunately, despite the twins' melodramatic pleading no one seemed to be wiling to move. So, in the end, they gave up fighting their losing battle and just went upstairs in defeat to see if they could find anything useful to do with their time.

When they reached their rooms they found piles of books on their desk they were supposed to read and several scrolls of parchment which were supposed to be filled up with essays about transfiguration theory and the effects of Jungle Juice when used in conjunction with Dragon's blood. Nope, absolutely nothing to do. Fred sighed and dropped onto his bed with a thump.

George wasn't about to give up so quickly though, the transfiguration book gave him an idea and he whipped out his wand in an attempt to change his bed knob into a broomstick. It didn't work very well, but he did manage to make it somewhat elongated and give it some tiny bristles at one end.

Fred watched complacently from his bed as the round ball turned into an oval with a small growth of beard. "Looks kind of like Percy," he commented wryly on George's creation.

"You know, now that you mention it," George laughed, "it really does look like him." George attempted to give him some neat red hair and a nose but it wasn't quite working right.

Fred got up from bed and helped George fine tune the miniature head into a masterpiece. They ended up spending several hours perfecting it non-stop until their rumbling stomachs finally got the better of them and they decided to go down the the Great Hall and get some dinner.

When they arrived at the Great Hall for dinner time it was already pretty full so they found their way to some seats next to their friends before Dumbledore could flick his fingers and make all the food appear. They were careful this time around and made sure they were the first ones to touch any of the food and were extra careful of everyone near them. No one was going to touch anything on their plates. It was one thing to trust your friends, but it was naive to trust them during times of war.

Lee started talking about how he heard about some secret passage near the potions room and was wondering if anyone was willing to come with him and investigate the matter. That said, Fred and George immediately accepted such an invitation. If something was 'secret' it is generally something any human would want to know, that's inherent in human nature, but since it was a 'passage' as well, it was doubly so for the Weasley twins. Trouble making was born late one night in a secret passage.

Fred and George quickly finished eating so they could embark on this journey and were slightly put off to see Lee Jordan taking his sweet time with his food. "Hurry up," George nudged him in an attempt to get him to rush.

It is said, that if you watch a clock tick it seems as if ten minutes pass every click of the minute hand and, much like that, George felt as if Lee was moving in slow motion, every bite was painstakingly long, and his arm seemed to cut his chicken breast with far less efficiency. This also may have been because he was doing it on purpose just to watch the poor twins fidget in their chairs as they waited.

Lee finished eating, finally, and they went exploring.

After several hours of searching they gave up, it felt as if they inspected every painting, every hallway, every nook and every cranny to no avail. It seemed as if Lee's rumor was just that; a rumor.

So, using George as a lantern, they found the stairs and headed back out of the dungeons which were poorly lit at the best of times. They walked on through several hallways sparsely populated by people as it grew somewhat later (around 9:00) and curfew (10:00) grew closer. They had walked all the way to the stairs which lead to Gryffindor Tower when Fred nudged George behind Lee's back and mouthed the word "prank" to him which made George's eyes went wide and mouthed the word "oh" back to him.

"Uhm, Lee," George ventured, "Fred and I have to go to the library for a little while and hopefully figure out what Mcgonagall was talking about during class yesterday." This was an uncharacteristically bad lie for George who usually prided himself on good lies, but it was also the only thing boring enough that would make Lee willing to leave them to their own devices.

"Yeah, we don't want to fall too far behind the rest of the class."

"Uhm, okay," Lee said, confused about Fred and George's unusual behaviors – Fred and George study? It was suspicious – "Have fun."

"Fun? Studying? Honestly, Lee, if I didn't know better I'd say you were slowly turning into Percy."

"Never!" Lee said in denial, "I still have a personality, unlike him."

Fred pretended to considered that, "Perhaps, but you have Percy's sense of humor." George grinned wickedly at that statement.

"Percy doesn't have a sense of humor," Lee stoically pointed out.

"See what I mean?" Fred asked George.

"Yeah, it shows," George answered wryly.

"Thanks, guys. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it," Lee said with utmost sarcasm which simply dripped with so much of it his entire upper torso dropped several inches as the words dropped out of his mouth and plopped onto the floor. Somehow, – probably through practiced skill – the thick sarcasm didn't seem to effect Fred and George in the slightest whatsoever.

"No problem."

"Any time."

Lee glared at them, which is the only proper thing to do people who completely and purposely ignore sarcasm in order to make themselves feel more clever.

"Well, we should really get started on that transfiguration," Fred said eventually.

"Good night," said George with a smile so evil Hell itself cringed.

"See you later," Lee waved to them and headed up the stairs wondering why George smiled so broadly. It was frightening.

Fred and George headed back down the hallway and, surprisingly enough, actually went to the library, although not to do transfiguration homework. Madame Pince watched them suspiciously as they wandered into the library and began to browse the bookshelves for while as their time started to run out. "Five minutes, everyone," she said to the library in general which had various students in it still; the most prevalent house in attendance was Ravenclaw whose students were getting an early start on homework that hasn't exactly been assigned yet.

Fred and George found several books that touched the subject matter they were looking for and eventually decided on The Narcissist's Guide to Mixing Magic which George read the opening line to and fell in love with it in an instant: You are amazing, there is no doubt about it. George figured that even if the book wasn't all that informative it would, at the very least, be incredibly amusing to read.

The took the book to the front desk and signed it out just as Madame Pince started to usher students out of the library for the night. Fifteen minutes remained until curfew.

Fred and George opted not to go back to their dormitory though, and instead headed toward the hospital wing to see if they could finally get Madame Pomfrey to remove their ill-effects from the pranks which were supposed to have run out a long while ago.

They trudged through the hallways where scattered people were saying their good-byes for the night and heading back up to their rooms before they arrived at the door to where Madame Pomfrey took injured children and gently rapped on the door until she finally answered it.

"Yes?" she said. Then giving them a once over, "Oh dear, me. You seem to be on fire."

"It seems that way," replied George with a smile.

She sighed, "Very well, come in, I'll get you two fixed up in a jiffy then send you right back to your rooms before curfew is up." She ushered them in and went into the other room to get something. She came back with a small black bottle labeled "Zonko's Prank Remover" and had them each take a teaspoon of it. Nothing happened.

"It takes a while to work, but by morning you shouldn't have anything wrong with you. Now, go. I have some real patients to attend to."

"Madame Pomfrey," Fred started, "Can't we just stay here for the night?"

"No," she replied shortly, "This place is for the sick or injured and you are neither so you simply do not belong here."

"But it's practically curfew and we wont make it back in time, and you know Snape is just sitting outside Gryffindor Tower - "

" - just waiting for some student to head in two minutes late and deduct 30 points for being out the dormitories after hours."

"You wouldn't want to be the reason why Gryffindor lost thirty points, would you?"

"Of course not," Madame Pomfrey said in a weary voice, "but you've got plenty of time to get back, so off with you." With that she started ushering them out.

"But we're so tired - "

" - honestly, we might fall asleep on the way there - "

" - and just fall to the ground and pass out on the pavement - "

" - and even if, on the rare chance, a teacher doesn't find us and take points away - "

" - we'd wake up with aches and pains all over - "

" - and then we'd have to come back here in the morning, anyway - "

" - and legitimately."

Madame Pomfrey held up and hand to silence them as they were about to continue on in their verbal bombardment. "Fine, fine, you can stay. Just don't make a habit of it," she sighed and went back to work.

Fred and George whooped and were immediately yelled at by Madame Pomfrey from the other room for almost waking up the sick and injured. So, quietly, they went to bed with grins of triumph.

In Gryffindor Tower Lee, Angelina, Katie, and the rest of the first, second, and third years slept in the common room because their rooms reeked with the overpowering smell of dung from several bombs that went off at precisely 10:30. No one was sleeping very well, the couches weren't soft and comfortable as much as they were hard and lumpy. Most of the children slept on the floor though and, ironically, they seemed to be the only ones actually getting any sleep. At least they were until 2:30 struck.

Mayhem broke; it was loud. Several firecrackers went off sending screeching noises echoing in the room and poppers dropped from the ceiling landing next to the sleeping children underneath then screamed in their ears, making them ring painfully.

Confetti bore down on them from above and got stuck in everyones hair and made their skin glitter. The stuff did not want to come off. Some students stood up, others screamed with fright when the bombardment began and everyone was looking around with bloodshot eyes wondering what just happened as the last of the confetti settled down to the floor.

"Fred and George were behind this," Lee stated knowledgeably after noting that they weren't there and their strange behavior earlier. Lee and Angelina quickly used the moment to their advantage to recruit helpers from both the first and third years; Fred and George were now up against an army.