Sorry it took so long to update…my muses have been failing me. I apologize in advance for any geographically incorrect information I may have put in here, I've never been to England and don't know what these places are like, I'm just pulling them out of the Encyclopedia. Don't shoot me.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Clearasil, anything remotely involved with the HP series, or the Goonies. I do, however, own the name 'Apples.'

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Three bruises, four angry travelers (Fred swore he hadn't tried to knock them over with his backpack) and a sprained finger later, the group was assembled at the far side of the platform. Hermione stood below the giant number seven marking their gate, muttering to herself as she studied the map before her. "Left, right, left, left…no, no, right…"

Ron stared at her from a distance, commenting to Harry, "I always knew that girl was raving mad." Harry grunted in agreement as he lifted his pack onto the luggage cart in front of him. Ron began debating the possibility that Hermione was schizo out loud, not even noticing when Harry relieved him of his bag. "D'you think it's normal for a girl to be talking to herself like that? I mean, she's done it countless times before, like that one time she thought Rita was an Animagus…just starts blabbing to herself, making no sense at all…"

Harry nodded and said "right" at random moments, before making his way over to the twins to collect their luggage and leaving Ron to rant.

Hermione, being the resident genius of the bunch, soon had them twisting their way through the small labyrinth that was the Dover train station. They had to stop once to let the bottomless pits fill themselves with fish and chips, but seeing as the boys were machines when it came to eating, the group was back on track in a record two minutes, thirty three and a half seconds (Ron was purely fascinated by the stopwatch on Hermione's digital wristband).

About three quarters of the way through the station, Fred began loudly complaining about the walk and his hand began inching towards the pocket of his jeans, where Harry knew he kept his wand. In a panicked moment Harry launched himself towards the aforementioned rascal, knocking his hand away from the dangerous stick of wood that would wreak havoc if used in a station full of Muggles. "Bloody hell, Harry, what was that for?" whined Fred, looking crestfallen.

"D'you have any idea what the Muggles would do if you just disappeared into thin air?" answered Harry.

"Ah…no, not really."

"They'd go nuts! There would be newscasters, reporters, hysterical women screaming and men who immediately drive themselves to the optometrist, complaining about hallucinations!" shouted Harry, holding onto Fred's wrist to stop him from grabbing his wand.

"Wait…newscasters as in vellytision?" asked George, somewhat confused as to Harry's explanation.

"Newscasters as in television." answered the raven-haired boy, barely holding in a laugh.

"That's what I said, vellytision."

"Right…"

"So if Fred Disapparates, the vellytision people will come?" asked George, slowly inching closer to his other half.

Harry nodded, not quite catching the evil glint in George's eye.

"And I'll be on vellytision sets all over England?" he asked, leaning over to whisper something to Fred.

Harry nodded again, but this time his eyebrows were furrowed.

Fred began slowly inching his hand back down to his pants pocket as George distracted Harry by asking how a television worked. Harry started to tell the overly curious twin that he had no clue how the colored boxes functioned when his eye caught Fred's movements; but to his dismay, the hand was already inside the pants pocket…

His eyes caught a movement from behind Fred at that moment, and in a heartbeat a grin spread over his face. There stood Hermione, waving Fred's wand teasingly in her hand. Fred was hastily searching the floor for his wand by now, and Harry had a problem holding a straight face as he saw Hermione doubled over in silent mirth as she watched the helpless Weasley. With what looked like a lot of self-control, Hermione took pity on Fred, and she tapped the confused boy on the shoulder, waving the black stick in his face and shooting off down the corridor before he was able to snatch it out of her grasp. He immediately chased after her, dodging trains and carts and people in an attempt to restore his kidnapped magic.

George stole the luggage cart from Harry and began running it down the hall (and into people) in hot pursuit of the other two. Muffles ran beside him before jumping atop the mountain of backpacks, a great furry grin appearing on his face as the cart gained momentum. George, seeing the sheer joy that filled his doggy face, took a leaf out of Muffles' book and threw his upper half and one foot onto the back of the cart, leaving one foot dangling in order to power the cart and steer around potentially painful obstacles.

To bystanders the scene must have looked quite amusing, unless of course you were one of those unfortunate beings who were caught in front of the procession: a girl with a black stick followed closely by a loping red-haired giant in sweats, being chased by a runaway cart complete with five backpacks, a purple dog, and another red-haired giant laughing maniacally, and just when you thought it was safe to move down the hall again you were charged by a black-haired boy and another red-haired male, yelling down the hallway at the others.

The crash that followed all of this ruckus was almost as amusing as the chase had been, unless of course you were one of those unfortunate beings in the procession that was run over by a cart laden with five backpacks, a purple dog, and a maniacally-laughing red-haired giant. It certainly wasn't amusing for Hermione, who was yet again crushed at the bottom of the pile, and was rendered so immobile that Fred was easily able to pluck the wand out of her limp grasp. George leapt off the cart and hauled the skinny girl up, apologizing profusely and dusting her off with such great gusto that she almost toppled over again. The bright side to all of this was that the group had finally made it outside, where the sun was beaming happily at them and the outside temp was a gorgeous 70°. Harry, who had avoided the messy pile-up, stuck out his wand hand, hailing the Knight Bus reluctantly. With a loud BANG! the monstrous, violently purple vehicle that could hardly be called a bus appeared on top of all the cabs lined up beside the station. A once-silver ladder appeared from above and all five of the teens slung on their backpacks before maneuvering their way up into the bus. The face of Stan Shunpike popped itself out the doorway, scaring Harry so badly he almost let go of the ladder.

"Jeez, Stan, don't ever do that to me again." he commented, hoisting his pack up to the wiry bellhop. It was then that he noticed a great change in Stan's appearance; he didn't have much of a choice, seeing as Stan refused to take his pack and stood there with both index fingers pointing to his face proudly. Harry nearly dropped the backpack on George's head.

"Your…your face…"

Stan broke into a grin that would have put the Cheshire Cat to shame. "My granny sent me this here Clearasil stuff, works wonders whether yer wizard or Muggle." he explained, holding up a little white bottle. It was true; Stan's face was completely pimpleless, and besides a bit of stubble he looked like a new penny.

Harry opened his mouth to say something when he felt an uncomfortable shove and a muffled voice from below him yelled, "Get a move on, will you? I'm about to drop this backpack on dear Hermione's head, and we wouldn't want it to mutilate her beauty, now would we?" said George as he pushed Harry upwards.

Fred laughed and agreed with him, "Eh, I don't know, why don't you try it, bro? It may be an improvement."

It was hard to tell who was in more pain by the time all five were aboard the now rapidly-zooming bus, Fred, or George. Both had received a hearty beating from the indignant brunette, who was currently fuming up in front with Harry and Ron. Both looked ready to take off running at the first sign of violence.

The ride to the dock was obscenely short and lasted all of five minutes, but Muggle traffic was in gridlock and Harry was incredibly happy that he had opted to ride the bus. Ern threw on the brakes rather hard, but Harry was used to the physical abuse the bus dealt out and held fast to his armchair. Fred was not so lucky, and wound up facedown on the ground for the umpteenth time that day, much to the amusement of Hermione.

"Channel Boat Docks!" called Apples, the Shrunken Head that rode in front with Ern. The six quickly exited the ginormous bus, saying goodbye to the still-beaming Stan, and hoofed it to the dock. A rather small blue boat was tied to the pier, the chipped white letters across its hull proudly proclaiming itself "The English Channel."

"That's an original name." muttered Ron to George, causing the latter to snicker.

Hermione cast an anti-seasickness charm on them all when no one was looking. The sky was rapidly darkening and the wind was kicking up, and Hermione knew that the Weasleys were not fond of sea travel. They handed off their luggage to the brutish-looking man at the front of the ship before boarding the boat and grabbing a table in the cabin. Hermione pulled out a pack of Uno cards, and after explaining the extremely complicated rules, the game began, quickly becoming cutthroat.

"Sorry, Ron, but I gotta get rid of this card…" apologized Hermione, although it was less than sincere.

"Right. Thanks."

"No problem…"

"UNO!" yelled Harry, laying down a yellow 7 and proudly holding up his one remaining card.

"What?! But I still have all these cards…" gasped George, motioning to his hand, which held over twenty of them.

"Everyone gang up on Harry!" yelled Fred, and then the game got really ugly.

The boat was ten minutes into its voyage when the storm hit, calling an immediate halt to the vicious Kindergarten game. Hermione quickly gathered the cards and they all sat gloomily in the cabin, trying to hone in on the ghost story Ron was relaying and ignore the sounds of retching coming from all over the ship. Two minutes into the story Fred got fed up and pulled out his wand, tussling with Harry and finally covertly muttering a Soundless Spell on the table to block out the disgusting noises.

Fred sighed contently, listening to Ron talk about some murderer with a hook. Thank God for magic he thought to himself, I don't know how the Muggles live without it.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Meep. I'm done J . Hope it made you all happy. It made me happy, cuz I got past the second chapter! Yay! Go me!