QLFC: Season 10, Round 1
Team: Falmouth Falcons
Position: Chaser 2
Prompt: The Number 13 - Write about someone getting betrayed.
Optional Prompts: (action) Hiding, (object) Bowl, (object) Feather
Word Count: 1,450
The Great Chick-scapades
Molly Weasley thought she always knew where each of her children was at any given time while they were home with her; however, she would soon be proven very wrong.
That particular summer evening, Bill was at a friend's house, 4-year-old Ginny was napping on the sofa with Arthur, little Ronnie was quietly coloring in the sitting room, Percy was reading in the garden, Charlie was in the orchard practicing for Seeker tryouts next month, and the twins were watching him.
As dinner time approached, she began gathering all she needed to cook for her large family. She pulled out a set of stainless steel bowls and noticed the largest one was missing. Since this was the one she needed, she looked for it in all the cupboards and even cast Accio, but with no luck. Perhaps one of the kids took it to their room for some strange reason.
Molly pushed the swinging door open to the sitting room, but before the door even closed, Ron came barreling down the stairs, screaming at the top of his lungs. Ginny suddenly awoke in tears, jolting Arthur awake.
"Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!" Ron wailed as he plowed into her and wrapped his arms tightly around her.
Molly pried his arms from her as she knelt down and ran her fingers through his hair. Arthur tried to calm Ginny down.
"What's the matter, Ronnie?" Molly murmured.
"F-F-Fred and Ge-orge," little Ronnie whimpered.
"Oh dear, they didn't turn your teddy into a spider again, did they?" Molly asked exasperatedly.
Ron vigorously shook his head, tears still streaming down his cheeks.
Having settled Ginny down, Arthur set her on the couch and moved over to his wife and son. "What did Fred and George do?" he asked softly.
"They w-w-wanted to m-make H-Hen-"
"Take some deep breaths, sweetheart," Molly told him.
After a few deep breaths, Ron spoke steadily. "They wanted to make Henrietta and the chicks fly, but they turned her into a m-mONSTER!" he squeaked.
"We'll take care of it," Arthur assured, then stood up. Molly followed suit, but before either of them could take a step, Ron grabbed each of them around the leg.
Arthur looked over at Molly. "Do you want to deal with the twins or –?"
"I'll deal with the twins," she answered firmly.
With a quick kiss atop little Ronnie's head, she strode resolutely up the stairs to the twins' closed and locked bedroom door. She cast Alohomora and entered without warning. The scene that met her both startled and amused her, though she would never admit it.
Dozens of feathers flew around the room as if each had a mind of its own. George's pockets floated upward and away from his body while he tried to push them down. Fred jumped from one bed to the other trying to catch the feathers. A spell book lay open on the desk. Neither Henrietta nor a monster was anywhere to be seen.
Molly loudly cleared her throat and cast Immobulus on the flying feathers.
The twins froze, their eyes locked on their mother.
"Fred and George Weasley! What in Merlin's name are you two doing?" Molly screeched.
"We're – um – er –" George stammered.
"Seeing who can catch the most feathers!" Fred quickly lied.
Molly raised an eyebrow at her son's blatant lie. "George, empty your pockets," she ordered.
George faltered. "They're…They're just feathers."
"Pockets, now."
Reluctantly, George reached into his pockets and pulled out a total of three light brown chicks that flew amongst the immobile feathers as soon as he released them. The seven year old shrank back in an attempt to avoid his mother's piercing gaze.
"Where's Henrietta?"
"In the chicken coop," Fred said, still trying to get away with their shenanigans.
A faint, rhythmic tapping on metal came from under Fred's bed.
"That's the ghoul," Fred blurted.
Molly knelt down and looked under the bed. The stainless steel bowl she had been looking for sat upside down, the clinking noise still emanating from it. Arthur's wand also lay under the bed. She slid them both out. She stuck her husband's wand in her apron pocket and left the bowl on the floor.
Giving her son one last chance to come clean, she asked, "What am I going to find under here?"
Fred plopped down onto his bed with a bounce. Eyes downcast, he mumbled, "Henrietta."
A gasp escaped Molly's lips when she lifted the bowl. A featherless hen rose to her feet and stupidly looked around the room, oblivious to what had happened to her. Molly covered her face with her hands then ran them through her curly copper hair.
While striding over to the door, she bellowed, "Arthur!"
Arthur came bounding up the stairs a few seconds later and had to stifle a chuckle upon seeing the room with feathers frozen in midair, chicks floating around, and a naked chicken in the middle of the floor. The death stare he received from Molly helped him contain his laughter.
"Fix this," Molly ordered, gesturing to Henrietta.
Without a word, Arthur picked up the hen and began to carry her out.
Molly stopped him. "Aren't you forgetting something?" she asked somewhat aggressively.
He looked around the room. He picked up the bowl and caught the flying chicks in it like catching butterflies in a net. When he began to leave again, Molly cleared her throat.
Arthur stopped.
Molly pulled his wand out of her apron and glared at him.
"I had that on the mantel out of their reach," Arthur defended himself.
"Apparently it wasn't far enough out of reach," Molly shot back.
With the hen under one arm, the upside down bowl of chicks in his other hand, and his wand between his teeth, he finally headed downstairs.
"We didn't mean to," George piped up.
"We made the chicks fly. We thought we could make her fly, too," Fred clarified. "It didn't hurt her."
"She didn't even notice."
"I'm glad she's not hurt, but that is not the point. You were supposed to be in the orchard with your brother, but you snuck back inside with chickens, nicked your dad's wand and Charlie's spell book, and came up here to play around with magic. You are not allowed to touch a wand until you're eleven, and then you're not supposed to use it outside of school until you're seventeen. You could have hurt yourselves or Ron – You actually terrified your little brother again."
"You wouldn't have ever found out if Ron wasn't such a baby," Fred grumbled.
"I am not a baby!" Ron objected from the landing.
Molly spun around at the same time Ron stepped into the room.
"You didn't tell me you were going to turn her into a monster!" he continued.
"We didn't!" Fred argued. "That's just what a chicken looks like without feathers, but you had to be a big baby and run to Mum. You promised you wouldn't tell!"
"Boys!" Molly interjected, putting an end to their bickering.
George stepped forward first. "I'm sorry, Ronnie," he sincerely apologized while he gave him a hug.
"I'm sorry you can't keep a promise," Fred muttered.
"Frederick," Molly admonished.
"So-rry," he sassed, then quickly threw his arms around Ron and immediately let go as if he'd touched something hot.
"Now, you two clean this mess up," Molly ordered, gesturing to the feathers hanging in the air, "and stay put until I come back. We're not done here."
With that, Molly and Ron closed the twins' door behind them and went downstairs.
Loud cheeps echoed from the coffee table where two of the three chicks sat in the stainless steel bowl. The other soared around the room barely out of Ginny's reach as she attempted to catch it.
Arthur came in from the front porch carrying Henrietta, who had significantly more feathers.
"She'll have all her feathers back in a few days!" he announced. He crouched and set her on the floor.
Ginny paid no attention to them, still playing with the last flying chick. After a gentle nudge from Molly, Ron cautiously moved forward and pet Henrietta.
While Ron and Henrietta got reacquainted, Molly easily caught the flying chick and told Arthur, "You forgot one."
"Let her play with it," he said. "I'll put it right before dinner."
Molly released the chick back into the air, so the kids could play a little before the chicks had to go back to the coop.
She finally got to start on dinner with a different bowl. While she cooked, she thought of how thankful she was that no one got hurt and she had plenty of time to come up with a suitable punishment for her two hellions.