Disclaimer: They're not mine, they're hers, blah blah blah.
A/N: Response to the Sugar Quill Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes writing challenge. Enjoy.
The Weasleys Get Wheezed
Boisterous singing rang through the chill air of a spring midnight, rollicking down the moonlit street. George Weasley grinned. It was his and Fred's birthday, and all of Diagon Alley was going to know about it.
George turned around to face the singers – his brother and a few mates, on their way back from the Leaky Cauldron – and started to conduct their off-key chorus of "Happy Birthday." This proved a poor choice; his coordination wasn't exactly at its peak at the moment, and between the added difficulty of walking backwards and the cobblestones that were going out of their way to trip him, he found himself staring up at the sky.
"Oi!" he said. "That's pretty, up there." He waved at the stars and began conducting again, even though the others had stopped singing and were beside themselves with laughter.
Asher Crowsby, who worked at Quality Quidditch Supplies down the street, grabbed his hand and attempted to pull him to his feet. "You're well and truly pissed, George," he said. "And you're home. Time to say good night. We've work tomorrow, you might remember."
George turned his head and saw, with some bemusement, the number 93 next to the now-darkened U-No-Poo advertisement in the window display. "Oh, he said. "But the street is so nice. It's like a ride going round. You should try it, Fred!"
Fred, who was prodding a cobblestone with his wand, looked up, beaming. "Try what?" he asked eagerly. "Are we going to toast the Cannons again?"
"Right," Lee Jordan snickered. "You're both for bed." He and Asher hauled George to his feet, replaced the cobblestone that Fred had turned into a sausage, and marched them up to their flat.
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George awoke a few hours later just as the first smudges of dawn were coloring the sky. He decided he didn't like this development. At least while asleep, he'd been blissfully unaware that he needed to use the loo, that his tongue felt like sandpaper, and that his head didn't appear to like its position on his shoulders anymore. And if he wanted to remedy any of these problems, he was going to have to get up and try his chances at walking.
He was saved having to make the decision, however, by an obscenely loud bang which seemed to go off inches from his ear, and which sent him vaulting from his bed amidst flickering light. He stepped on a fake wand that promptly turned into a set a marbles. He reeled and landed flat on his back for the second time that night.
"WHAT IN BLOODY HELL?" came Fred's voice, bellowing from the other bed. George heard the mattress squeaking and tried to tell his brother to watch where he was going, but the wind had been knocked out of him. His feeble gasp wasn't audible above the fierce crackling of the Catherine wheels that were currently ricocheting off the walls of their room, and Fred's foot came down squarely on his abdomen. He doubled over on the floor with a moan. Now he really had to use the loo.
"Blimey, sorry!" Above him, Fred leaped back and George could see him groping wildly on the bedside table for his wand. "Lumos!" he said, and the resulting flood of light caused George to cover his eyes with a cry of pain.
"Did you set off a box of Whiz-bangs?" he wheezed.
"I was dead asleep, same as you!" Fred froze, and George heard it, too: a loud crash from the shop downstairs. They nearly fell over each other in their scramble for the door.
The stairs ended in a corridor that connected the back room with the shop. George piled into his brother from behind as Fred stopped at the entrance and put his finger to his lips. Together, they peered into the shop.
It was dark and by all appearances deserted. He caught Fred's eye and headed left while Fred moved off to investigate the other side. Still walking somewhat unsteadily, he stopped between each row of shelves to search for anything out of the ordinary. The faint squeaking of Pygmy Puffs became audible as he neared the section by the window which contained the WonderWitch products. His eyes were drawn by a dark shape on the floor.
"Oi, Fred!" he shouted. He knelt by a pile of boxes that had toppled from their shelf. The light from his wand revealed the words:
Note-Passing Kit
"Bored in class? Write a note!
A quill for you, a quill for your friend.
Watch as what she writes appears on your own page.
The days of getting caught are OVER!"
"What is it?" Fred demanded, barreling into the section and reaching for one of the kits.
"I think someone knocked these – mind that shelf!"
Fred, bending down with his hand outreached, had lost his balance and thrown out the other to steady himself.
"Whoops," he said as he dragged their entire supply of Patented Daydream Charms down with him.
George gave a horrified yelp and tried to catch a few, but only succeeded in getting splattered with potion as the vial inside one of them shattered.
"Oh, bollocks," he said, sitting back on his heels and unthinkingly putting his potion-splashed fingers in his mouth.
"Don't swallow it, you prat!"
"Why?" George said. "Won't do anything unless I say 'Somnium Dies.'" His eyes widened. "Oh…"
The room started to pitch and heave like the deck of a ship, but a very jerky one. For an instant, he felt a salty sea breeze. Then it was gone, and Fred was watching him with his eyebrows raised.
"You all right?" he asked.
George shook his head. "Yeah, fine," he said. "I didn't hear the door, so whoever knocked those over is probably still here. We should check in the back room."
"Right you are," said a young man wearing a frayed vest open over his tanned, brawny chest.
George stared as the sea breeze began to blow again and a sail started flapping in the corner of his eye. "No. Oh, no."
Screams reached his ears, but they were oddly muted, as if the volume were being turned up and then down again. The strapping fellow was busily cutting a rope attached to a mast or a beam high above them and stowing his knife with a flourish in the sheath at his belt. "Hold onto me, dear lady," he said, extending his arm to an open-mouthed George. "I will not let you come to harm."
"Not on your life," George said, batting the bloke's arm away.
"Oi, that hurt!" Fred shouted.
"Sorry!" George's headache tripled. "I didn't mean to hit you, it was that bloody Don Juan…" He trailed off as a definite thud came from the back room. He dropped his voice to a whisper. "Did you hear that?"
Fred was on his feet and heading for the door in an instant. George started to follow him, and felt a strong arm seize him round the waist.
"A kiss for luck?" Don Juan asked.
George yelped and turned his face just in time to take Don's hearty smack on the cheek. Before he could protest further, the hero leaped, and they swung together across the deck, Don firing his pistol at various bandana'd and mustachio'd scoundrels mid-flight. They landed on the upper deck away from the fighting, an upper deck lined with shelves of jump ropes, boxes, and sweets. George heard a door slam as if from a distance. Then Don staggered against him.
"I am wounded," he cried, and indeed, there was blood from a gunshot wound in his shoulder. He gazed at George with pain-filled but smoldering eyes. "I must stop the bleeding. Vivian, my darling, will you give me your garter?"
George looked down, realizing for the first time that he was wearing a corseted and beribboned gown with a long, flowing skirt.
"Nothing!" Fred's voice was disgusted. He stalked out of the back room and threw something at George. He caught it and turned it over in his hands. "It's a Decoy Detonator!" Fred fumed. "Whoever it was used our own bloody product as a diversion. I thought I heard the door slam - did you see anything?"
"Er…" The floor started to heave again, and George cringed. It passed quickly, though, and he cautiously opened his eyes again. He was still in the store. "No. Not a thing." He paused. "But now you mention it, I heard the door slam, too."
They flung the doors wide and scanned the cobblestone street, now grey in the misty dawn. Not a person in sight, not a sound to be heard. "Bollocks," George murmured, and turned to go back inside. And stopped dead.
There in the window hung the banner that had once advertised the U-No-Poo constipation sensation. No more. Now, blazed across the fabric in brilliant orange script, it read:
Weasley and Weasley: 19 Years and Counting!
Free merchandise for all on our birthday.
And beneath the words, capering about and giggling, were him and Fred as toddlers. Naked.
He gaped soundlessly. Beside him, Fred made incoherent spluttering sounds.
"We've been Wheezed," George said finally. He felt his lips twitch, and he surrendered to the impulse to laugh. Of all the ridiculous… They'd been woken from a drunk sleep on their own birthday and pranked with their own products. Fred snickered too, and they fell about laughing until George was certain he would pee his pajama pants in another moment.
"This is brilliant," Fred said, wiping his eyes. "Brilliant. I wonder who it was? Lee? Bill? Must've been someone with connections to the family, to get that picture."
"You realize we're going to have to spend all day convincing our customers the merch isn't actually free," George reminded him, although the fact didn't make him particularly gloomy. "And they're not going to be happy about it. That banner won't come down easily, I'd bet anything."
"Ah, well," Fred said cheerfully. "We'll do a few contests or drawings, give away some free candy or Pygmy Puffs to some kids. That should stop them from rioting."
"Good idea," George said. He stopped to admire the poster again, shook his head, and made for the door, still chuckling. "I need to take a shower after we get rid of those Whiz-Bangs. Happy birthday, brother."
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The young boy withdrew his head from peering around the corner of the cauldron shop situated across the street from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.
"They've seen it. Gone back inside," he said.
"And they didn't see you set off the fireworks?"
"No, used the diversion thingy you gave me."
"Excellent. Thank you, Arlo. Here's the Galleon I promised you. Now run along, and study hard so you're ready to start school next year. Say hello to your mother for me. And remember…"
"Thanks," the boy said. "And don't worry, Mrs. Weasley. I won't tell a soul."