Harry Potter and the Golden Labyrinth
Book Seven Fanfic
Disclaimer – Anything that you recognise belongs to J K Rowling.
A/N: Sorry I didn't post this last night, but fanfiction wasn't letting me log in. Enjoy and please review!
Chapter 4 – TricksThe remainder of the week passed fairly un-eventfully. The Delacour's, leaving Fleur, headed home, Sam went back to his parents and the twins moved to their residence in Diagon Alley. The Borrow felt very empty and quiet with the crowds gone. Mr Weasley was constantly at the Ministry as they desperately sought to hinder Voldemort in every way possible. Charlie and Bill both had to travel often to help the Order, although they rarely told anyone what they were doing.
Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were kept better informed of the goings-on of the war from the Order now. They would only hear twisted versions of events from the Prophet anyway, and the adults never knew what might be helpful in Harry's quest, so they passed on information whenever they visited.
The three friends spent many an hour locked away in Ron's room; reading through telephone directories; checking lists of names and addresses; researching and practicing difficult spells; trying to find anything that might help them in their quest. They often felt guilty during these times, because it left Ginny alone with only Molly and Fleur for company. But they had agreed that no one except themselves should know of their tasks, as Dumbledore had ordered. Even so, every time Harry caught sight of Ginny alone in the garden out of Ron's window his stomach twisted uncomfortably.
Harry sighed and lent back in his chair, pulling off his glasses and rubbing his eyes tiredly. It was eight o'clock in the evening, and all three of them were in Ron's room. Harry was at the desk searching an old book for any spells that looked like they might be useful; Hermione was lying on her front on the bad scanning the long list of names, occasionally crossing some or making notes in the margin with her quill; Ron, who had long ago given up work, was lying on his back and flicking his wand lazily and performing a few simple charms.
Glancing at his watch, Harry decided that he had had enough of trying to read the small, closely spaced print. He marked his page and closed the book, then picked up the parchment where he had been writing interesting spells. Scanning down the list he turned to Ron.
'Want to try a couple of these?' He asked. The most annoying thing for Harry at the moment was that he couldn't practice all the new spells they had been discovering. The best he could do was memorise them and hope that he could master them quickly once he had come of age.
Ron nodded and sat up on the bed, waiting expectantly for Harry to say the first spell. Hermione glanced up from her work, then looked back at it, obviously torn between research and new spells. Logic won and she turned back to the names, although obviously listening to what the boys were doing.
'Ok…' Harry said, trying to pick out an interesting spell. 'How about this one; The caster of this charm shall henceforth be immune to the sound of any creature for the duration of three thousand heart-beats, enabling him to pass through the walls of the mortal form and become fearless of the songs of beasts.'
Looking at Ron's face as he struggled to understand the old language that Harry had copied out, he laughed. 'It means that your not affected by banshee's and stuff.'
Ron nodded appreciatively. 'But couldn't you just silence the creature?'
Harry shrugged, not sure. Hermione, unable to concentrate on her work, answered for him. 'What if there was more then one creature Ron? You may not be able to silence them all in time. Or if you don't know what creature it is, or if you can't see it, there isn't really much you can do. But this charm you can place on yourself before you hear anything, as a precaution. The only problem is that it sounds like you wouldn't be able to hear your comrades.'
Ron rolled his eyes at Harry. 'She had to know everything, doesn't he?' He muttered.
'So what is the spell?' Hermione asked Harry, ignoring Ron.
'Cloth-an-i-siras.' Harry said slowly, pronouncing the syllables carefully so that they wouldn't say it wrong. 'The wand movement's quite complicated.' He frowned for a second, mouthing the words describing it. 'You have to raise it, flick, then swish it once to the left…no the right…erm…'
Hermione shook her head and took the parchment out of his hands. She read the relevant notes quickly, then handed it to Ron while she practiced the movement. Once she was sure that she had the action right, she performed the spell with the words. Harry and Ron watched her, waiting to see if anything was going to happen. Hermione looked back at them, then smiled.
'Say something or I won't know.' She spoke a bit strangely, and a queer look crossed her face as the words left her mouth.
'Has it worked?' Harry asked.
Ron laughed as Hermione tried to understand what he had said. 'I think it has. Here, let me have a go.'
After Hermione had corrected his wand movement, Ron too said the spell. Unusually it worked the first time, and Ron smiled broadly at Harry when he couldn't understand. Harry laughed, delighted that the first spell had been such a success. He looked back at the sheet, eager to try more.
'How about this one. It looks alright…'
'Harry, we can't hear you.' Hermione said.
Harry looked at them, then comprehension dawned on his face. 'There's no counter charm. You're going to be stuck like that for 3000 heartbeats. How long is that anyway?'
Ron looked at him, puzzled. 'We can't hear you Harry.' He said.
Harry was about to point out that Hermione had just said that when he realised that Ron couldn't hear Hermione, and he wouldn't be able to hear Harry's comment anyway. With a sigh Harry grabbed a scrap of parchment off the desk and used his quill to write. He then handed the parchment to Ron and Hermione, who soon wrote their replies. Their conversations when thus:
Harry – So you idiots can't hear anything
Ron – Nope, nothing at all
Hermione – We're not idiots!
Harry – Yes you are. Only idiots cast a spell on themselves without checking if there is a counter first.
Hermione – You're the one who told us too!
Harry – I did not tell you to. I just found the spell.
Hermione – And told us to try it out. You would have tried it if you weren't underage.
Harry – I might not have.
Hermione – You so would have.
Ron – Hermione, do you realise that this sounds just like the sort of argument that I am always having with Harry?
Harry – Eviling Ron isn't going to change that fact Hermione.
Hermione – Anyway, shouldn't we be trying to figure out what to do about this charm?
Ron – Don't try changing the subject.
Harry – She's right. How long is 3000 heartbeats anyway?
Hermione – It depends on the person. People all have different heart rates.
Ron – A guess will do, Hermione
Hermione – Say we have 70-80 beats per minute…3000 beats would be…
Here there was a scribble of calculations as Hermione worked out the sum, Ron and Harry looking on in awe at her mental maths skills.
Hermione – I'd say between 37 and 42 minutes. Ron probably has a slower pulse then me, so mine should lift first.
Ron – 40 minutes! Bloody hell…I can't be in silence for that long.
Harry – Looks like you're stuck with it mate.
Ron – Don't smirk at me.
They spent the next half an hour locked in Ron's room, unwilling to let the adults know that they had been experimenting with spells without doing full research into them first. The only visitors that they could not stop were the twins, who Apparated straight onto Ron's bed on their way home from the shop.
Ron and Hermione, who were sitting on Harry's mattress writing notes to each other, couldn't see the twins. Harry heard them arrive and looked up.
'Don't move.' He said quickly, glancing at his friends to see if they had noticed the arrival. They carried on writing to each other obliviously. Harry stood up casually and walked out of their eyesight as if he was going to fetch something from his trunk. He sat down on the edge of the bed next to the twins, who where looking at him curiously.
'Why haven't they noticed us?' Fred mouthed.
'No need to be quiet.' Harry said with a smile. 'They can't hear anything.'
'Nothing?' Exclaimed George. Harry nodded. 'Why?'
'We were trying this spell, and it worked, but then they realised that there was no counter charm. They just have to last the silence out.'
'How long will it last?' Fred asked eagerly.
'For about fifteen more minutes we think.'
Harry headed back to the desk, giving Ron a smile when he glanced up. Pretending to be flicking through the book, Harry looked at the twins. They were walking up behind the pair and, careful not to let their shadows fall over them, were reading the parchment over their shoulders. Soon they were smiling, and then laughing. Exchanging a wink they simultaneously sat down, one on either side. Fred grabbed the quill and parchment and wrote something, the George did likewise.
Ron gazed, open mouthed, first at the parchment and then at his brothers. Hermione was blushing and the tips of Ron's ears were turning red. The twins got up. Patting Ron on the back, then headed jauntily out of the room, laughing loudly. Harry decided to follow them before Ron regained his senses enough to blame him.
Downstairs, Fred and George were sitting at the kitchen table and drinking pumpkin juice. The smiled when they saw Harry and poured him a glass, motioning him to sit down beside them.
'What were they writing?' Harry asked after taking a gulp of his drink. It was nice to be out of Ron's room for a bit.
Fred smiled evilly. 'The were being rather romantic.' He said in what he imagined to be the voice of a girl in love.
Harry laughed too. 'Ron isn't going to be happy.'
'No.' George agreed. 'But that spell has given us a great idea for another product.'
'What is it?' Harry asked curiously.
Fred tapped his nose. 'That'd be telling.'
'However,' Added George, 'we've brought some tests for Ron this evening, and you could help us by giving an opinion.'
Harry readily agreed and they waited for Ron and Hermione to come downstairs. Quarter of an hour later they did, and other then evil looks no mention of earlier was made. As he stood up to go and fetch the products that Ron had consented to try, Fred muttered to Harry.
'They're embarrassed that we're going to tell someone else.'
When he came back in, Fred was carrying a brown bag. He sifted through it and pulled out a pair of clipboards, one of which he handed to his brother. Then he pulled out the first product. It looked exactly like an ordinary quill, not brand new, with an ink-stained end. He handed it to Ron, who took it dubiously.
'What is it?' He asked nervously.
'It's a quill, nitwit.' Said George slowly, as if Ron was stupid. 'Just hold it for a second while Fred gets the stuff out.'
Fred was pulling objects of various shapes and sizes out of the bag and lining them on the table. There was a bottle of what looked like pumpkin juice, several pairs of glasses, four flags such as the ones that students used at Quidditch matches (one for each of the houses) and a bottle of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion, the sort that Hermione occasionally used to straighten her hair.
'Can I have that quill now please?' Asked Fred.
Ron handed it back and Harry noticed how quickly Fred dropped it on the table, obviously un-willing to hold it for long. He quickly swung his eyes back to Ron, searching for any sign of a trick being played on him. But Ron looked the same as ever as he asked Fred what each of the items did.
'That'd ruin the surprise!' Fred exclaimed. Ron looked increasingly nervous.
George seemed to take pity on his younger broth. 'Try the glasses first.' He advised. 'They're completely safe.'
Ron looked like he was about to say that anything made by the Weasley twins was bound to be un-safe, but then thought better of it. He reached forwards to take a pair of glasses, then shrieked suddenly. He was staring at his hand, or rather, the place where his hand should be.
It took Harry a second to realise that that was what the quill had done. Ron's mouth was hanging open in horror and Harry couldn't help laughing. He knew that it was the twins doing, so Ron would surely have his hand back soon.
'What was that?' Harry managed to splutter out.
'Queer Quills.' George replied, gesturing at the quill lying innocently on the table. 'They make the holder's hand disappear…'
'It's more then disappeared. It isn't their!' Ron protested, somewhat hysterically, waving his stump in the air. 'I can't feel it!' He banged it on the table, expecting the stump to hit it, but it was stopped a short way away by what must have been Ron's hand.
'They make the hand disappear, and the person cannot feel it. It temporarily numbs the nerves.' Fred finished for his brother.
'We've got a whole variety. You don't necessarily have to loose the hand; you can have it changed into a dog's or cat's paw, a bird's talon, a lobster's pincer or a horse's hoof. We're planning on developing more, but we want to see how well they sell. They're the sort of thing that would normally sell like crazy to Hogwarts students, but no one knows if the school's going to open again.'
There was a short, uncomfortable silence. Fred seemed to realise that the previously happy mood had suddenly darkened. Her pulled several boxes of quills out of his bag and showed them around.
'We plan to sell them in a full set of six quills, one of each type.' The wooden box looked from the outside just like the sort of container that students carried quills in to protect them. Fred opened one up. Inside lay six quills, all looking slightly battered and defiantly used.
'We thought that if they looked new it would seem to suspicious.' George commented.
'Here Harry, why don't you try one?'
Wondering what was going to happen to his hand, Harry picked up the quill. After about ten seconds the quill dropped with a clatter as his fingers fused together and his hand formed into a horse's hoof. They spent the next ten minutes playing with the quills, changing their hands into all manner of thing. Harry waved his hoof and his pincer at George and looked at him pleadingly. 'Please tell me you do have a remedy to this.'
George nodded. 'Of course. The top of the quill box is fake. In the compartment is a pot of ink, which will reverse the hand if dripped onto it. But the ink only reverses the exact six quills that came in the same box. That way if you played the prank on your friends you could reverse it, but if you chose not to the person wouldn't be able to use their own to reverse it; they'd be stuck.'
'How long for?' Hermione asked, torn between anxiety and amusement.
'Only half an hour, don't fret. Within thirty minutes the child will be as right as rain.'
Once their hands had been reversed, Harry and Ron both agreed that they would be the craze at any school, and congratulated the twins on the idea. Hermione was looking at the quill in George's hand thoughtfully.
'Wasn't that the quill that turned Ron's hand invisible?' She asked. George nodded. 'Are they only one use then?'
'Of course not!' George exclaimed, pretending to be insulted. 'We don't rip our customers off like that!'
'Then why isn't your hand turning invisible?'
'Ah.' Said George, looking pleased. 'Now we come to the heart of the matter.'
Fred nodded solemnly. 'We realised that if our customer couldn't persuade their victim to take the quill quickly enough, then they would end up with no hand.'
'So we managed to fix it so that you could specialise a box of quills to not effect one person.' George said grandly.
'You see this symbol.' Fred was pointed to a carved symbol on the top corner, one of the one's for a stationary company. 'You press your thumb on this as soon as you buy the quills, and say Specilatus. Then low and behold you can use the quills normally to no effect.'
Hermione looked impressed, and immediately took the box to inspect the engraving and try and work out the spell. Fred and George took the obvious compliment with smiles, then moved onto the other products.
'These are Energetic Eyes.' Fred said, holding up a pair of glasses. 'Wear them and it looks like you are wide awake, even if you close your eyes and have a nap.'
Ron took a pair and tried them on. It looked exactly as if he was just wearing normal glasses; his eyes moved and blinked, and were exactly the same shade as normal. Only if Harry moved to the side could he see that Ron had infact closed his eyes, and the spell was making it look as if they were open.
'We have a range of glasses and sunglasses, for those who don't wear glasses. Perfect for taking a quick nap in a boring lesson. The only problem is if you start to snore, but we are developing products to hide that too.'
'What does the hair Potion do?' Hermione asked, holding a bottle. 'It looks almost exactly the same as a normal pot.'
'It is a very special kind of Hair Potion. We call it the Hair-Crazy Hair Potion. Care to try?' Fred asked innocently.
Hermione shoved the pot at Harry quickly, not wanting to do anything to her already difficult hair.
'It makes the user's hair stand up on end and turn a wacky colour. There are several different options; red, blue, green, purple, pink, yellow and orange. Anybody care to try?'
In the end they forced the green version on Ron, whose hair was soon standing on end and glowing lime green. In retaliation, Ron ganged up with Hermione and turned Harry's hair blue, making the unruly locks stand on end. George was the next victim, while Fred stood by laughing, for yellow hair. However, his twin soon turned on him and Fred was stuck with pink hair. Hermione wisely took this time to go outside to find Ginny, thus avoiding the potion.
Next they tried the quidditch flags, and Ron and Harry agreed that it was a good thing that Hermione had gone because she would never have approved. If you hit a member of the opposite quidditch team on the head the immediately lost their voice for about ten minutes. Harry wished that he could go and see a Hogwarts match where these were in use; it would be the quietest Quidditch match ever.
The pumpkin juice was a concoction designed to spike someone's drink with. The drinker's head temporarily turned into a pumpkin. When Ron hesitantly took a sip of his juice, before he had been told what was going to happen, it was quite a shock to see his head turn round and orange, with two large eyes in the middle. After a few seconds juice started to run down his shoulders and his own head re-appeared, scowling at Harry, Fred and George's laughter.
When they went to bed, Harry and Ron agreed that they hadn't laughed so much in ages.
'I don't know what we'd do without the twins.' Harry said as they changed for bed that night. 'It takes someone special to create so much laughter in times like this.'
'Yeah.' Ron agreed with a smile, turning off the light. 'They're special alright.'
A/N: PLEASE REVIEW!
I didn't mean to take up a whole chapter with wheezes, but I got carried away. You'll just have to wait until the next chapter for what I expected to happen in this one. Read on to find out what happens in Chapter 5 - Birthday
Pippinwitch: I didn't want to waste too much time on quidditch in the last chapter (did I just say you could waste time with quidditch?) but there is a proper match coming up soon.
Only-Wing-: thank you for your review. I'm glad you all liked it! Ron and Hermione are already of age, and Hermione has passed her Apparation test.
REVIEW PLEASE I BEG YOU!