Harry Potter and all characters, etc. belong to J.K. Rowling, not me.

If You Can Help Her – Chapter 16 – Stuck

Harry was lying in bed asleep in Ron's room, when he felt someone shake him. He opened his eyes to see a blurry form he'd recognize anywhere, even without his glasses. "Ginny!" he said out loud until she signaled for him to be quiet. With a puzzled look on his face, he reached for his glasses. When he put them on, he saw that she was holding his firebolt and invisibility cloak, which had been in his trunk.

"I need you to come with me," she whispered.

He nodded and got out of bed. Together, they crept out of Ron's room and down the stairs, doing their best not to make any noise. When they got out the door, Harry noticed it was still dark outside. "What time is it?"

"About 4 o'clock."

"4 o'clock? Why'd you wake me at…"

"If you'll just listen, I'll tell you!" hissed Ginny impatiently. "I want to pull a prank on Fred and George, and I need your help."

He smiled. "I assume that's what you need my stuff for, as well."

"Uh huh. I need you to fly outside their window under the cloak…"

-IYCHH-

Fred and George lay sleeping in their room when they heard a loud tapping on the window. Fred got up, opened the curtain, and saw nothing. He went back to bed. Once he was comfortable, he heard the tapping again. This time, George got up and checked. He didn't see anything, so he went back to bed. The tapping came again, so Fred and George both got up and walked to the window. Fred opened it and yelled, "Whoever's doing that had better stop!" and reached out his hand, feeling around for something he never found. They closed the window and got back in bed, only to hear the tapping noise again. They were getting irritated now. They both got out of their beds and walked up to the window, pulled it open, and started yelling, "Whoever this is, it's not…"

At that moment, there was loud banging coming from their door. They both walked toward it, leaving their window open. George opened the door to find Ginny, looking very tired and irritated. She immediately began shouting, "Will you QUIT that yelling and screaming in here! It's bad enough you made me spend all of yesterday degnoming the garden by myself, but now you can't even let me sleep! I mean, if you must insist on being up and yelling at this time of night, you could at least put a silencing charm on your room! Oh yeah, you're still too young to do magic outside of Hogwarts, aren't you…"

On and on she went, effectively distracting them from what was going on behind their backs as Harry, with his invisibility cloak securely around him and his broom, flew from the window to Fred's bed and then to George's, casting an incantation at each bed, and then flew back out the window.

"…and you could try to be considerate of other people, even if you don't care about bothering me! There are lots of other people in this house trying to sleep!"

"Like your boyfriend," Fred pointed out.

"Harry needs his beauty sleep," finished George.

"You leave Harry out of this!" she shouted and left.

The twins then closed their door and window, and got into their respective beds. Ten minutes after they lay down, the tapping at their window began again.

"I'll get it, Fred," muttered George. He sat up as he prepared to leave his bed when it happened. "Wha?" The half of the mattress by his feet folded upward, knocking George back to the laying position. "Fred, there's something wrong with my bed."

"Fine," hissed Fred, irritated with his brother. "I'll do it." He started to roll out of the bed, only to watch it roll him back to the center. "What's going on?"

George tried standing up, only to find that as soon as he stood on the bed, he was knocked back into the laying position. For about an hour they kept trying to get out of bed, only to be stopped by their apparently living mattresses. They tried reaching for their wands, only to find that their beds wouldn't let them even do that. No matter what they did, they ended up lying flat on their backs.

At six o'clock they heard their mother call through the door, "Get up, Fred and George. Breakfast will be ready soon."

"We can't get out of bed, mum!" called Fred.

"If you weren't up so late, you wouldn't be so tired. Now get up, boys," she insisted as they heard her footsteps climb down the stairs toward the kitchen.

"What are we going to do?" asked George.

"I don't know," replied Fred. "Hopefully, there's a time limit. Otherwise we'll have to admit that someone pranked us."

"That'll be twice in two days," George pointed out.

"We can't do that, even if the first one wasn't really Ginny," insisted Fred.

"This time was Ginny," came a happy female voice from behind their door, which immediately opened, revealing their sister, wearing a smirk on her face.

"But how?" asked Fred and George together.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out."

"She had help," realized George.

"Probably her boyfriend on his broom," hypothesized Fred.

"With that wonderful cloak," concluded George.

"I wish we had one," commented Fred enviously.

"Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't," replied Ginny, still smirking.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked George.

"Release us," commanded Fred.

"I can't," answered Ginny, turning to leave.

"Then get Harry if he's the only one who can release us!" shouted George, who was now turning pink.

"He can't release you, either," revealed Ginny calmly over her shoulder. "No one can."

"Come back here! You can't just leave us like this!" they both pleaded desperately together.

She turned back around. "Don't worry, boys; it'll release you in about an hour." Ginny then let out a slight laugh as she closed the door and walked down to breakfast. "I'll tell mum you said you weren't hungry.

-IYCHH-

Chapter end