Chapter 19: Crocodile Feces
Oi Fred! Look what I just found!
No way! Our Diary!
Memoirs Fred…
Right, whatever…
We are terribly sorry for not keeping you posted in nineteen months.
The thing is, we thought we'd lost this thing in our mother's spring-cleaning fiasco two years ago.
Well Fred, the reason there was a fiasco in the first place was because you forgot to tape our new shipment of pocket swamps shut.
But you have to agree… the results were quite hysterical.
Our room still smells like crocodile feces…
It was a rather lovely spring day at the Burrow… the birds were singing, the bees were buzzing, the flowers were blooming, the sun was shining, Mrs. Weasley was screaming…
"FRED, GEORGE, RON, GINNY!" She bellowed. "GET UP! GET UP! COME NOW OUT OF BED!"
Several rushed footsteps were heard from upstairs and four redhead freckled faces of sheer terror peeked downstairs.
"Look at this place! It's a mess!"
Fred looked groggily at the living room; there was a bright purple sock on the floor.
"Wow mum… how can we live in such filth?" George said, picking up the sock and stuffing it down his pants.
"I want this house spotless by noon! Look at this, filth and dirt and dust everywhere!" With this Mrs. Weasley left the room, scrubbing everything in sight and banishing random items outside into a rather large dustbin.
"Well it was only a matter of time until she finally cracked" Fred said, rubbing his eyes sleepily.
"Bloody hell, it's five thirty in the morning" Ginny whined, padding upstairs again.
"That's it… I'm moving out, I don't care if I have to sleep on Hermione's couch…" Ron muttered angrily.
"And if you don't clean I'll have the whole lot of you cleaning the dishes on Thanksgiving!"
The four Weasley kids opened their eyes in horror and raced upstairs to change.
May I interject?
Sure my good man
Okay, so this spring cleaning took place in 1999, the war was over, our dear little brother had plucked up enough courage and—
And had a few fire whiskeys for confidence…
Right, anyways Ron and Hermione were engaged.
And Mum went hysterical, cried for days until she finally did a hostile takeover for the wedding plans…
(They got married earlier this year.)
Okay Fred, back to the topic.
Oh! Right! Also, I don't know if we ever mentioned this… but Thanksgiving with the Weasleys is a riot, I mean just counting our immediate family there's nine of us… plus Harry and Hermione, which are eleven—
And Hermione's family… that makes thirteen
Plus Fleur and her family, which makes twenty… twenty one if Gabrielle's boyfriend comes along too…
Don't forget our uncles, dad has six brothers whom each have more than four kids…
And mum has three sisters and eleven nephews and nieces…
Okay, I think they get the picture!
Yeah, the point is, in Thanksgiving, we all get together and have a HUGE dinner and whoever was grounded at the moment was stuck doing the dishes…without any magic.
We have done it a grand total of eleven times!
Ron has done it three times
Yeah, for getting caught with—
Shut up! Don't spoil anything yet! Besides, the readers are forgetting about the main story!
Right! Sorry!
So anyways… we spent that entire day cleaning…The doorbell rang and Ginny called from downstairs. The twins were currently upstairs cleaning the bathroom.
"Fred! George! You have a new shipment!" she bellowed.
"I'll get it Fred" George put down his toilet scrubber and went downstairs. Jack, their usual delivery guy, greeted him at the door.
"Hey George…Fred?" Jack greeted, handing him a clipboard and a quill.
"George. Hey Jack, how're the wife and kids?"
"Pretty good, Bobby owled me a week ago telling me he made Gryffindor seeker"
"Sounds great"
"Sure is, we just sent him a new broomstick"
George handed him the clipboard. "That's great, you don't mind if I send him a few of those to him do you?"
"As long as they're not skiving snack boxes"
"Nah, these are pocket swamps"
"Sure, I bet Bobby will love those" Jack levitated forty boxes of pocket swamps through the open window of the twin's room. "Oh, by the way, I hit a big rain cloud on the way here and the tape is damp, the boxes could burst open… and knowing what your stuff can do, make sure you tape them shut"
"Sure thing, I'll get Fred to do that"
"See you around George" Jack got onto his loading broomstick and kicked off.
One more thing… we were staying there because we were expecting the shipment there in the first place.
Yeah, we use our old bedroom as a storage room.
Mum's terrified of going in there…
"Hey Fred, the shipment of Pocket Swamps has just arrived, but the boxes are wet so you have to tape them back up."
"Sure, let me finish this first though" Fred said, while sucking up dust bunnies with his wand.
"Boys! Ginny! Supper!" Mrs. Weasley called from downstairs.
So after having a nice dinner a sudden tidal wave of swamp water flooded the entire house…
Crocodiles and all…
Mum was furious and we spent an entire month cleaning the house
While we paid for a hotel for them to stay in while we restored The Burrow to it's original, crocodile-less self…
And we had to re-order a shipment of pocket swamps…
That was an expensive month…
Yeah, but we DID give mum and dad an entire week in a spa
It's the least we could do really…
But we were still stuck with Thanksgiving dishes…
Shut up, I still have nightmares about it!
Anyways, after the swamp was gone we couldn't find the diary anywhere
So we assumed it was turned into crocodile feces
…Which I'm now assuming that that is this sticky brown stuff all over this…
And I assume that that's why our room still smelled like crocodile feces.
Wow, you are a genius Fred…
Why thank you George!
Uh-Oh… I think mum just found our stash of vintage acid pops
No! We have to go! We'll keep you posted!
Hopefully in less than nineteen months!
