OH BOY! It's been quite a while since we've updated this and I really don't think we have a good excuse. Let's see... Nancy and I have both read book 5, (I've read it at least 3 times), and we've seen Prisoner of Azkaban. (ANY ONE got a shot of that pic in the Daily Prophet?? I've only seen the movie once and it was too quick for me to get a good look at Bill...) So... unless we're waiting for book 6... I don't guess we really have a reason not to continue this. Actually, you can all thank Nancy for this chapter. The third movie has inspired her and without her I'm not much motivation. So... while everyone hero worships Nancy, on with the Thank You's.
(annoyed note from Nancy as she tries to post this up - They went and changed the upload thing on me! I can't get asteriks to load up, and it would appear that we need to use their "horizontal rules" now to divide the story. Double ones are between the A/N and the story. I'm going to try bold/italic to replace the asteriks... rowr.)
Anora!! We're so glad you keep up with our story. Hopefully we'll be posting on a more regular basis.
Copperstring: Hmmmm, I don't think you'll get much Draco/Ginny out of us. Not that we don't support that... (I personally go for most pairings as long as its well written and Davesmom has lots of good Draco/Ginny stories...) But we're really glad you found our story. Hope you keep reading!!!
Icea: Another stumbler! Heee heee... I'll let you fight Nancy for Charlie... as for Bill... glad you're enjoying his character too! Just remember... He is mine!! ;)
Psiana: Oh dear... one of my most favorite reviewers and I can just hear you berating us for taking so long on this chapter. Can we ever make it up to you?? Throws herself at Psiana's feet begging for forgiveness It will never happen again!!! I solemnly swear our next chapter will be out sooner. (At least it will be if Nancy wouldn't work so much!!)
Shahrezad1: Woo hoo!! Another new reader... and we've probably took too long to get this next chapter out and now you've forgotten all about our wonderful story...sigh
Tigger-180: I like those short and sweet reviews. To the point! Bloody Awesome!! Keep reading!!
Jeff: Glad you've decided to review our story!! Now this means we have every right to harass you for reviews, make you beg for new chapters and actually maybe even get to know you! ;)
Emma AKA Littlewolf4: If you enjoyed the last chapter I think you'll really get a kick out of this chapter. It was very fun to write. And yes... I know... giving George and Fred more ideas for pranks may not be the best idea in the world... but hey... I really don't think they needed much help. Do you? Ha ha! P.S. Feel free to use Jenni and Nancy anyway you want for your story. Just give us a link to it and we'll review!!
Ronsspawn: You've read our minds. Nancy and I have been discussing how slow the story is going.... the day by day thing is a bit too much and it will be picking up speed! Thanks for the info. It's always nice to get input on what's annoying. We'll be working extra hard on that!
Carrie! Glad to see you're still reading the story! Hee hee... yes... me... in charge of a house full of Weasleys... pretty scary stuff! And don't worry about Charlie... He's just gotta worry about... oh well... nevermind... best if you read the chapter and find out for yourself!
Drucilla: Glad you like our story!!! We hope you keep reading!! It's always nice to hear comments from new readers!
Louisa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HEEE HEEE!!! Pokes Louisa to make sure she's breathing I see you're frantic over the bit of time Harry has been spending with Ginny! Never fear!! We will not let you down. You may yet see Harry in a towel...just not in this chapter! Keep a look out! (Psssst! Did you see the movie??? Wasn't Harry so cute??? random interjection from Nancy BLACK SWEATSHIRT!!! ALMOST AS GOOD AS TOWEL!!!)
ZOE: so... we've heard alot of Manly Bed Duties and their possibilities.... And yes... tempers are much better now... well some of them anyway.
Pantherocker: Hmmmm... "So, try to get the next chapter up in about a month or sooner please! That would be nice. I would fall down and worship you." Well, I guess since it took us longer than a month you're excused from the falling down. But feel free to worship us just because we got this next chapter out... ;)
Fanciful Sovereign: "Sounds like wizards are in need of some muggle devices (cell phones and internet access wouldn't hurt them!)" NANCY!!! Did you give her a copy of this next chapter??? I think you've been selling me out! Hmph... and here I thought I was the Co-Author on this thing... hmph. Just kidding! But I think you'll be amazed at how close you were for this next chapter!!
Nancy was finding it very hard to be serious with Charlie interrupting every two minutes to sneeze, sniffle or just grumble about his blasted luck. She had to look away from the group to hide her grin when she caught his muttered threat to transfigure them all into giant snotballs if they didn't act a bit more sympathetic.
"I saw dat."
Damn, she'd been caught AND he was talking funny with all the congestion. It was so unfair. Fighting to keep a straight face, she looked back at his face – at the moment, it was very red and annoyed looking.
"What? I'm just listening to Bill!" she whispered, hoping to distract him into paying attention to someone else.
Charlie's arm snaked around her and before she could yelp for help she'd been yanked backwards onto the bed.
"Charlie."
Bill's lazy interjection made Charlie pause in mid-smother, giving Nancy just enough time to fight her way out from under the pillow and attack his stomach. She'd learned this morning that her dragon man was VERY ticklish and thought that it was high time she put that knowledge to use.
"Hey! Stob dat! Ah-ah-CHOO!" Charlie wriggled, trying to get away mid-sneeze, and finally managed to flip her over and pin her underneath him. "No fair, tickling the sick bloke."
Jenni and Bill exchanged an exasperated look.
"Listen, guys..." Jenni spoke carefully, "Maybe we should do this later? When you're feeling better, and..."
Charlie waved her off with a tissue. "No no, Nancy will behabe herself now. Won't you, Nancy?"
Nancy nodded as seriously as she could, considering she was smushed under Charlie and half of a pillow. "Since I can't breathe, I don't see how I can misbehave," she muttered.
Charlie grinned down at her, and her heart did a somersault in her chest. She still couldn't believe that he'd forgiven her so quickly. Not, she reminded herself, that she had DONE anything so wrong... it was just that things had been so strained, so uncomfortable for what felt like ages. As Jenni, Bill and Charlie settled back down to business, Nancy squirmed a little to get more comfortable, and let her mind drift back. He'd been himself ever since the two potions they'd poured into him had done their job and he'd woken up this morning on her watch with his blue eyes full of tears.
Of course, NOW she knew they'd been watering from the really awful cold that mixing those two medicinal potions had created, but at the time it had seemed so sweet and emotional. She'd been pacing back and forth beside the bed, and when he'd looked up at her with such obvious relief and caring, and those darn tears, she'd just thrown her earlier plan of quiet, restrained dignity out the window. Everything had come out – her fears about leading trouble to him, her worries about not being good enough to make him happy, even a begrudging admission that if he was really set on it, she guessed she could learn basic Romanian. That had been the point at which he'd gone into a sneezing fit – which she had thought at first that he was putting on to hide that he was laughing.
Once he'd reached ten in a row, though, she was shoving tissues at him and getting ready to run for Mrs. Weasley. The only problem had been his death grip on her arm – no amount of threats or cajoling had gotten him to let her go, and so she'd had to wait out the sneezing. As soon as he could talk again, he'd sent her over to his bureau to fish out a letter from a James Dorallen, welcoming him back to England and expressing the Ministry of Magic's delight to have such an experienced dragon expert working with them. That had shut her up. Charlie proceeded to take advantage of her stunned silence by first apologizing to her for his part in the standoff, and then he'd said...
"... and you were brilliant you know. I don't know if I could have handled it as well as you did. You can rescue me anytime."
Nancy was pulled out of her reminiscing by Charlie poking her in the side and whispering, "You alibe down dere?"
"Yeah, leave me alone. I'm comfy." And she was just getting to the really GOOD part of the morning. Well, first there had been some crying – ok, a LOT of crying on her part, along with some warnings that if he EVER let himself get hurt like that again, she might just have to deck him. But then... Nancy felt her face go hot just remembering the kiss that Charlie had stopped her tears with. About ten minutes into it, they'd managed to pull back for air and Nancy had remembered that there were about ten other people in the house who would probably want to know that Charlie was awake and OK. It had been another ten intense minutes after THAT when she'd managed to extricate herself from the VERY interesting position he'd maneuvered her into and head for the door. He'd stopped her with a huge sneeze and a quiet question...
"We're ok?"
"Yeah, we're ok." His face had lit up when she'd answered, and she had felt a huge weight lift out of her stomach. She'd blown him a kiss and headed out to rouse the Weasley army.
Nancy snuggled down into the mattress, sighing happily, and not minding a bit that the pillow over her head blocked out whatever Bill was going on about. It wasn't that she didn't want to be involved in the decision making; it was just that she'd had the night shift watching over Charlie and hadn't really gotten any sleep. And then he'd woken up, and she hadn't felt like sleeping. And now his hand had come back up to play with her hair as he listened to his brother, and it was really making her drowsy...
"So we all agree that we're looking for one person?"
Jenni nodded her head and sighed, she heard irritation in Bill's voice as he directed that last question to the room. "Yes, Bill, I don't really think that there are TWO crazy Death Eaters who run apothecaries and want to kill us."
"Well, I just wanted to double check with you, since you seem determined to run into him so often," he ground out, obviously annoyed. Jenni sighed again under her breath. That would teach her to blurt out little details such as having seen her attacker from Nancy's apartment on Knockturn Alley just across the street from where Nancy and Charlie were attacked. Apparently she had left just before they arrived.
Really, the only logical explanation was that some Death Eater had decided to make Nancy a target – the attack on Nancy the night of the party, mistakenly getting Jenni at her apartment, and then the duel on Knockturn Alley all seemed far too related. The odd thing was... she had thought for sure that the creep had been headed away from that apothecary, and hadn't looked in any hurry to return. Still, who was she to know how a Death Eater thought?
Jenni's musings were interrupted when she felt Bill place a book in her hand. "What's this?"
Bill pulled out his wand and waited a moment before answering. "It's a way to get in touch with each other if we need anything. I threw them together last night." He glanced over at his brother's bed. "Charlie, maybe Nancy should hear this too."
Charlie shifted slightly and pulled the pillow off of Nancy's head. They all grinned when she let out a snore to wake the dead. He reached over to shake her awake, but Jenni's voice stopped him.
"Wait, let her sleep. She was up all night, you know... she's got to be exhausted. We can fill her in later."
"All night? Poor thing. What kind of shift setup is that?" Charlie muttered to them, shifting to gently rest Nancy's head on his chest.
"The kind she wanted," Bill answered defensively. "Fine, don't wake her. But you two had better pay attention so you can explain this to her."
Jenni noticed each of them had a book, Charlie holding both his and Nancy's. "So how does this work exactly? Some kind of broadcast charm? If one person writes a message everyone gets it?""No, not exactly. Each book has a different password. You start each conversation or message by giving the password to the book you're contacting, and then you end it by repeating the password. It picks up your voice so you don't have to write your hand off. I tested it from across the room, not bad reception at all." Bill paused before continuing. "If anything happens it's faster than sending an owl."
"But how do the receivers know they've got a message from you? It won't matter how fast it goes out if no one reads it..."
Bill sighed. "I'm still working on that. Maybe I'll enlist the twins - they're damn creative."
Jenni shrugged and flipped through her book. It looked ordinary enough, and the idea was good but her thoughts drifted back to the night of her attack. Yes, the idea was good but not fail proof. If anything like that happened again, she doubted there would be time even for this. With a shudder she closed the book and focused on something other than that night.
Bill had been watching Jenni as she looked over the book he handed her. He noticed a distant look on her face as if she had been remembering some horrible memory. To say he had been a little upset to learn about her second close encounter with the Death Eater was an understatement, but his protectiveness won over his temper as he saw her attempt to regain her composure.
"Are you ok?"
Jenni saw the worry in Bill's eyes and bit back her own irritation that she still harbored over their previous argument. She was still upset over the fact that no one had bothered to tell her about Nancy's attack the night of the party but she had plans to ask about that later. Choosing to ignore the question, Jenni asked a question of her own.
"Why now? Why is it suddenly so important for everyone to have these books?"
She watched as Bill and Charlie shared a look. They were definitely up to something. How incredibly unfair that Nancy was snoring away and leaving her to deal with the two of them all by herself.
"Bill and I talked at lunch. We're going to do some checking around and see what we can find on dis guy. I hab some time off before I start working wib de Ministry and Bill has a few days before he finds out about his transfer."
Jenni felt her stomach lurch uncomfortably at the mention of Bill's pending transfer but was quickly dismissed as realization struck.
"The two of you are NOT going around looking for some crazed maniac on Knockturn Alley."
"Why not Jenni? You went." Bill's voice was sharp and accusing.
"Fine, Nancy and I will go with you then." Jenni's voice was just as harsh and her gaze held Bill's daring him to challenge her.
"Jenni, it's not dat we don't want help, but dis guy is abter Nancy."
Charlie's soft voice caused Jenni to break eye contact with Bill and look over at her best friend sleeping peacefully against Charlie. She knew where he was going with this and he was right. Nancy was the one in trouble and Jenni was only letting her temper get the best of her. She sat quietly while Charlie continued with a sniffle.
"I'm sure the two of you hab a lot of work to catch up on and wib these books we can let you know if we get into a spot of trouble."
Jenni let out a sigh and leaned back in her chair, damning Charlie for being right again. The truth was she and Nancy were both going to be in pretty hot water for missing so much work lately.
"Fine. But you're going to be the one to tell Nancy she's being left behind." Jenni noted with smug satisfaction that Charlie gulped. He knew as well as she did that if Nancy had been awake then Jenni's point would have been argued with more force and possibly would have had a different outcome.
Jenni absentmindedly thumbed through the small book again as Charlie and Bill continued talking in low voices. Probably about where they were going to start looking for that creep WITHOUT her and Nancy, she thought angrily. Since they made no effort to include her in the conversation, she tried to distract herself by thinking of some simple charm that would work to let the intended receiver know there was a message in their book. Her mind drifted to the muggle invention of cell phones. There were settings that allowed the phones to vibrate without ringing loudly so as not to attract attention. Perhaps something on that line would be useful and the charms for that were relatively simple.
Let's see... alarmus? No, too loud. Lumos? Not if it's already light out, you'd never notice. How about... "Vibrato!"
Waving her wand, she whispered the charm, and the book started emitting a low hum and shaking forcefully. She looked up with a grin on her face and found Bill staring at her.
"How'd you do that?"
"Just an old potions charm – for when you needed the ingredients shaken, not stirred."
He shook his head ruefully. "Just don't tell me that Snape was responsible for that knowledge."
"You know, now that you mention it, I think it's something he and I discussed during the research for this article..." Jenni teased him, and then turned back to her book, trying to visualize the different spells it would take to enchant the books to react with the Vibrato charm.
A few minutes later, the first page of her book was filled with neat notes about triggers and links and she had a rough outline of how to make the books "ring." She turned the page and was starting on the combination of spells needed to send a message to two books at the same time when Bill's voice in her ear made her jump. He gently squeezed her shoulder as he spoke, "Maybe we should let them rest."
Jenni looked up, her eyes landing on Charlie who was fighting hard to stay awake. With a nod she gathered up all of the books and started to follow Bill out of the room, still lost in the magical communication possibilities.
Bill stopped just before he reached the door and turned around. In a mock serious tone he began to lecture Charlie. "You take it easy now. I don't want to come in here later and find another 'scuffle' like I did the other morning."
Charlie turned a deep shade of red, but was overcome by another fit of sneezing before he could reply indignantly. Bill grinned and tossed his brother a box of tissues. "Like I said, you shouldn't overdo anything."
Jenni followed Bill out of the room, still lost in thought, and collided with him as he turned to block the stairs. She looked up in surprise. "What is it?"
Bill thought over all that he wanted to say to her. He was still angry to learn how close a call she'd had with her ill-advised trip to Knockturn Alley, not to mention the fact that if she'd only trusted him with her hunch they could have saved Nancy and Charlie the trauma of the latest attack. Still, he knew full well that any discussion of that would wend its way back to his own withholding of information – she had a full right to know about the attack that night at the party, and he felt like a heel for not realizing that earlier.
"We need to talk, when you're done," he finally said softly.
That jolted Jenni out of her pleasant immersion in theory and diagrams. She was pretty certain that the conversation was only going to repeat what she already knew. He was sorry for not telling her sooner. This was for her own safety. But the fact was she had heard it all before and she was sick of it. Still, she supposed she owed him the chance to explain. "Ok, fine. When I'm done." That didn't mean she had to sound excited about it.
Bill bit back his own irritation. "Let's go downstairs." Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed Jenni's hand to lead her down the staircase. Jenni followed, her knees slightly wobbly from the contact with him – what was it about him that just holding his hand could so totally distract her?
He led her into the living room and let her ensconce herself in an armchair and resume scribbling. Once she was fully occupied, he turned his attention to his own notes, scattered on the table in front of him.
Moments later, Bill looked up to see Hermione and waited for Harry and Ron to follow. The two boys didn't materialize and instead Hermione sat in a chair across from Bill and said, "I wanted to ask you about the curse used on Charlie." He nodded and picked up the pile of papers he'd been looking at, giving her the table.
Jenni got up suddenly and headed for the door. Hermione looked nervously at the two of them. "I'm sorry. I wasn't interrupting anything was I?"
Jenni shook her head with a grin, surprised to see Hermione in the room. She had really not been paying any attention. "Nope, not at all. I was just going to get something to drink. You two keep talking."
Bill sighed inwardly as he watched her walk off. The sound of a throat clearing reminded him that he wasn't alone, and Bill turned to see the bushy-haired girl that Ron was stuck on spreading her notes out all over the coffee table. He couldn't help smiling – he was finally going to see the legendary Hermione in action.
"Sorry, what about the curse did you want to know?"
She glanced up at him mid-notation. "Oh, didn't I tell you?" She glanced back down at the table and grabbed a sheet of paper covered in diagrams and Latin spells. "Here, this should explain it. I just need to finish this calculation."
Bill took the paper from her and scanned it quickly. His eyebrows rose as he caught some of the spells mentioned – these were hexes that stumped upper-level curse breakers. What was this fifteen-year-old girl doing, that she knew their effects on a moving live target? She hadn't even taken her OWLS yet. He glanced back at her, trying to fight the uneasy feeling that his brother was in way over his head, even if he did pick great friends. She caught his gaze expectantly.
"Am I right?"
Bill blinked. He wasn't used to being caught unawares, but he sure hadn't figured out where she was headed. He turned his attention back to the "how to" list of curses, and his gaze sharpened.
"Wait a minute..." he muttered, flipping the sheet over and examining her careful notes on the effects and various remedies of each curse. Every one of them caused some form of paralysis, but most of them required only a simple "finite incantatum" once the spell was identified. The rest wore off after only about an hour. They were the tricks of booby-traps and thieves, those who hoped to catch you alone and unprepared. Nancy and Charlie had been neither of those things.
"This is a very thorough list," he said slowly, "But none of them could have affected Charlie with the symptoms we saw." He stopped and looked at her with an eyebrow raised, feeling admittedly gratified when she flushed and looked nervous. This had been hard enough on his head-boy's ego as it was. "I'm guessing that you're here because you think that there's something new to add to it?"
Hermione nodded decisively. "Exactly. I've been calculating the combinations all night... it was easy enough to rule out these four," she reached across him and crossed off four of the more benign hexes. "The real problem came in finding the spell that would cause pain, slow down the petrification, and last indefinitely without outside help." She pointed rather proudly to the sheet she'd just finished working on. "I think it's got to be one of these two."
Bill's heart sank as he read the combinations – it was bad enough that such spells existed, and small comfort that they were so hard to master on their own that you rarely had to fear them. If the Death Eaters had found a way to effectively combine the unforgivables with other spells... He honestly hadn't thought that they had enough real brain power for such complex magic outside of their leader. Brute force, yes. Hatred, slime and evil, yes. But this sort of magical development and execution required skill, research and a level of understanding of the wand and its abilities that he wouldn't expect from more than one or two Hogwarts students a year.
Something was seriously wrong.
Realizing that Hermione was waiting for some sort of response from him, he said gruffly, "I can't argue with your logic. It would have to have been a Crucio meld, because the others... well, they wouldn't have worn off. Not with just a potion or two."
She nodded. "What I can't figure out, though, is HOW you would combine them. All of the effects make sense, the fact that we were able to revive him, but... it shouldn't be possible!"
Bill sighed and leaned back. It had been a while since he'd done purely theoretical magic – calculations on paper were of minimal use in a booby-trapped Egyptian tomb. Still, it wasn't something you forgot after four years of Arithmancy... and if he remembered right, Jenni had excelled in that class. "Can I borrow these?" She nodded reluctantly, prompting him to add, "Don't worry, if I make any progress I'll let you know."
He wasn't sure that he actually would – it depended on what he and Jenni figured out. There were some possibilities that he'd rather keep out of fifteen-year-old laps if he could.
Jenni hurried into the kitchen, hoping beyond hope that the Weasleys were as fond of fizzing pumpkin juice as she was – it was her favorite thinking food. She was still trying to resolve the problem of the signal that would connect the four books and trigger the "ring" so that the message could be conveyed. She'd been exploring the properties of two-way mirrors when the thirst had hit her. She was halfway across the kitchen when she noticed Ginny Weasley hiding under the table.
With a grin, Jenni pulled out a chair, bent down and said, "Either you're eating something you should be sharing or you're plotting something I'd love to help with, so come on out."
Ginny gave a sigh of relief. "Oh, it's just you. I thought you might have been Mum or George." She crawled out from under the large table and sat down next to Jenni, adding in a low voice, "He's been acting odd lately and I'm about to find out why."
Jenni's curiosity got the best of her. Any investigation worth hiding under a table for at 14 was going to be interesting. "How are you going to do that?"
"Well, first I've got to find their stash of extendable ears. I know they keep them around here so Mum won't find anything when she searches their room."
Jenni's confusion must have shown on her face because Ginny went off on a rather quick explanation as she jumped up and started rummaging about the kitchen.
"Extendable ears. Watch that door for possible intruders, will you? Anyway, they're one of the twins' better inventions. If you don't ask I won't tell and you won't have any incriminating evidence. It's really better that way."
Before Jenni could reply, Ginny turned around grinning triumphantly and holding two long fleshy looking strings in her hand. "Found them! Thanks for taking guard duty."
Ginny looked quickly out the door in both directions and then turned to Jenni with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "You want to see how these things work? Purely a fact-finding mission, of course."
"Of course," Jenni grinned and the two girls bounded up the stairs. As they reached a door that looked like it had been set on fire and badly repaired a number of times, Ginny put a finger to her lips. The youngest Weasley pulled several small items from her pockets and retreated further down the hallway. She carefully lined herself up for an easy lob to the door and then took her wand out and touched it to one of the small round devices. Jenni was so caught up in waiting to see what was going to happen that she almost didn't notice Ginny stop mid-throw and wave frantically in her direction.
"Jenni, get over here!"
As she moved behind the youngster, Jenni finally identified the little round balls. "Dungbombs?"
"It's to make sure the twins haven't placed any Imperturbable charms on their door." Ginny shrugged matter-of-factly and threw a dungbomb.
Several things happened all at once. A large ball of orange fur bolted out of nowhere catching the dungbomb mid air, the door to the twin's bedroom opened, and Ginny screamed "Crookshanks! NO!" as the large ball of fur landed in the arms of one of the twins and the dungbomb exploded.
Jenni could only stare as George, or maybe it was Fred, glared at the two of them. His face was now scorched to match the door, his hair was smoking with that special dungbomb stench, and the hissing cat in his arms was certainly not being gentle in its requests to be let down.
Ginny opened her mouth and tried to mutter an apology. "Fred, we... I... I mean, I just wanted to show Jenni how much Crookshanks liked to chase dungbombs."
Fred narrowed his eyes. Jenni held her breath, wondering if he would buy the excuse he'd been given. From downstairs, Hermione gave an anguished cry as her cat paraded into the living room to show off its new style. Pointing his finger at Ginny, he muttered, "Watch your back, little sister!" before heading down the stairs and tiptoeing past the living room.
Once Fred was safely down the stairs Jenni let out a sigh of relief then turned to Ginny. "This isn't going well, maybe we should..."
Ginny grinned. "Are you kidding? This is the easiest fact-finding mission of the summer! At least now I know to look out for him. I was half expecting him to hex me on the spot. Besides, now we can proceed."
"How do you figure that?"
"The door's not hexed! He definitely didn't have time to reset it before stomping downstairs." Taking the fleshy strings out of her pocket, Ginny slid one end under the twins' door and stuck the other end in her ear. Jenni took the other and did the same.
What they heard for the first few minutes was nothing more than the scratching of a pen and some muffled hooting. Then, George's voice sounded, loud and clear.
"Oh stop complaining, Pig. You'll be back to Ron by tonight. I just need your opinion on this – Errol's always asleep lately, and Merlin knows Hermes is off limits. Ok, you know the drill. Hoot once if it's a particularly good sentence, and twice if you think I should take it out."
Jenni looked over at Ginny who waved a hand at her, signaling total silence. They heard George take a deep breath and then the rustling of paper.
"Hey, Lils. Hope the little brother isn't bugging you too much. I can send you a fresh supply of warders if you need 'em, Fred and I have been working on these great little guys that are two picture frames. You put a picture of the person you want to keep out in one frame and hang it out in the hall, and then the other frame you put a list of whatever you want to be off limits to the person in the frame. You can put it in BEHIND something else... like, say, this nice shot of your favorite Gryffindor Beater."
Ginny rolled her eyes when Pig hooted once and George agreed, "It IS a great shot... very manly."
"Colin Creevy sent it to me in exchange for a pair of those frames... he's going to test how they work with muggle pictures for us! Anyway, sorry to talk shop to you. It's been a weird summer so far, but everyone's ok. Keep an eye out for... well, you were there for Dumbledore's speech. But first – I'm sending you a present! It's even purple! I thought you would think of me when you wear it... wink wink And don't worry, I didn't let Fred near it. I'm still really sorry about that carnivorous violet – I SWEAR it didn't have teeth when I bought it."
Jenni grinned at Ginny – so this was why George hadn't been insulted by the frilly apron. She had to give him points for creativity. His girl would probably get a kick out of it.
Pig had hooted four or five times after the last sentence, making George sigh. "But she still doesn't believe that it wasn't my idea... it can't hurt to drive that point home, can it? Oh bugger off, I'm gonna leave it." There was the sound of a quill scratching out what was sure to be more of the letter, and both girls strained to hear the next words.
"Ok, well, don't have too much fun without me. George."
"Ahem. And just WHAT would you two be up to?"
They spun around to face Bill, who had spoken, and Hermione, who was standing behind him with the scorched Crookshanks in her arms. Their quick answers of "Nothing!" did not seem to impress Bill in the least.
He reached over and plucked the tell tale fleshy string still hanging from Jenni's ear and waved it in front of their faces. "Are you sure it was nothing?"
Bill folded his arms and waited, as Hermione glared at them over the stinking, crispy critter that used to be her fluffy orange cat. They both knew they were busted. Ginny finally sighed and gave Jenni a you-deal-with-him look. "Hermione, let me explain about Crookshanks..." she started, as she drew the older girl down the stairs.
Not one for giving up in a time of trouble, Jenni searched for a plausible story that would sound better than the truth. She cringed inwardly as she imagined having to tell Bill she had been helping his innocent younger sister eavesdrop on one of his brothers. He continued to swing the extendable ears back and forth in front of her, waiting, as heat rose in her face and she lost precious seconds to indecision. When he raised an eyebrow, she gave up and muttered, "I just wanted some pumpkin juice, it's not my fault your entire family is possessed!"
Bill rolled his eyes. She was adorable when she got caught breaking the rules. Totally out of her element. He stuffed the extendable ears into his pocket and took her by the shoulders turning her towards the stairs up to his and Charlie's room. "I probably don't want to know, anyway. Let's go check on the invalid and sleeping beauty, ok?"
Nancy woke with a start from a pleasant dream about a peaceful snowfall outside of Hogwarts to the sound of loud cursing.
"Damn blasted twins, messing wib bloody tissue boxes!"
She opened her eyes to look around and blinked. Everything was white. Squinting, because her glasses were hidden somewhere under all of the whiteness, she reached out and plucked from the air a... SHEET?
"Why are there tissues everywhere, Charlie?"
His answer was a muffled "bugger off" and some banging on the floor. Clearing herself off, she spotted his legs and followed them over to the edge of the bed, where the rest of him was quite busy trying to staunch the explosion of white fluffy kleenex that was coming from under the bed. With a sigh, Nancy stuck her hand into the white mound where the night table should have been and located a wand.
"Don't tell me. There's a boggart under there, and the thing Charlie Weasley fears most is being buried alive in tissues."
That got a response – he popped up, red and ruffled and NOT amused in the slightest. Before he could ream her out, Nancy leaned over and kissed his cheek. Then she hopped off of the bed and knelt down to the spot he'd been investigating.
"Just stay there, sicko. You'd probably pronounce the spells wrong anyway."
Peering under the bed, she pointed the wand in the general direction of the wave of tissues and said, "Accio!" Moments later she was holding up a normal-looking box, currently hemorrhaging tissues that all seemed to be magically heading for Charlie.
"It took me foreber to get that to stay down there!" Charlie said, exasperation clear in his clogged voice. Ignoring him, Nancy studied the box for a moment, and then laid her wand along one side and murmured "Recommencio!" The box stopped shooting tissues into the air, and those that were attacking Charlie fell to the ground like limp, normal pieces of three-ply kleenex.
As the final tissues settled, Nancy looked over at Charlie triumphantly. "You must have said or done something to set off the trigger for the charm – classic prank hex. Lucky for you, I had a few too many of those go wrong on me in the planning stages and I came up with a spell to stop them – reset the trigger, as it were." She paused, noting that he didn't seem all that impressed. "I'll have you know that spell got me extra credit on my Charms NEWT!"
"Oh yes, how could I hab forgotten – I'm talking to the Charms QUEEN. Ron says that your picture is up on Flitwick's wall... teacher's pet."
"And the fact that McGonagall has at least five different shots of you winning games for Gryffindor in her office exempts you totally from that category, I assume."
"Well, she certainly didn't gib me better grades for it!"
The door opened and both Nancy and Charlie turned their glares to the intruders, who looked from one to the other before they started laughing.
"What HAPPENED in here?" Jenni gasped out, when she'd finally sunk down onto Bill's relatively tissue-free bed, holding her stomach from laughing so hard. Nancy rolled her eyes and started tossing piles of Kleenex at her friend.
"Basically, Charlie was stupid enough to fall for a prank tissue-box."
"Yeah, stupid me, thought I could just HAB a tissue," Charlie grumbled, blowing his nose.
"And I, of course, reset the trigger and was consequently accused of sucking up to teachers during school."
Jenni stopped tossing tissues back at Nancy and stared for a minute. "The trigger? Wait... didn't you have some charm you came up with that would set off a chain reaction when a word was spoken? Remember? It was your third year, right?" Her voice was edgy with excitement.
Nancy gave her a confused look. "You mean the one where Filch called Mrs. Norris and all of the doors in the hallway he was in would open or close? That was fourth year, I think."
"Yes, but how did you make sure it was just that hallway? And how did you connect the triggers so that it only happened when FILCH said her name?"
"Do you have something to write on?" Nancy asked, suddenly serious and focused. Bill and Charlie exchanged confused looks, but Jenni handed her the book she'd been scribbling in and flipped to a clean page. As Nancy sank to the floor, writing furiously, Jenni looked up to explain.
"This is the last thing I needed. With one of Nancy's triggers, we can hook the books together to work - activated by one of our voices saying the password, then the trigger will cause the other books to vibrate and hum, and you'll basically be able to see whatever is being said in a 10 or 15 foot radius of the activated book." She grinned triumphantly at Bill, who raised both eyebrows and then bent down to whisper softly in her ear.
"Very impressive. What other talents do you have that I don't know about yet?"
Jenni blushed, and was about to whisper something back at him when Nancy jumped up, brandishing the book. "Ok, so I corrected a few of your wandwork parts, but you've got this pretty well worked out already. Shall we give it a try?"
The actual enchantment didn't take long, but they argued over passwords, coming up with weirder and more elaborate and obscure ones with each permutation until Charlie interrupted.
"Listen, I don't see the point of picking a word that will just stick out and be hard to remember. I vote for something nice and easy, like Cheese Kanoodle." He grinned and set about inscribing his and Nancy's names on the inside covers of their now pocket-sized books. The rest of them stared at him. Jenni was the first to recover, jumping up when she heard a hard tapping at the window.
"No objections, Jenni, Bill? Cheese Kanoodle it is, then," Nancy said with a bemused shake of her head, watching Jenni walk the short distance and let the unfamiliar owl in. It dropped a small red envelope into her hand and flew straight back out the window in a flurry of feathers. Jenni hesitated just long enough to notice the return address stamped on the back of the bright red howler, and then hurriedly walked over to Nancy.
"You got an owl from work." Jenni shoved the letter at Nancy and backed off.Nancy's eyes widened and she flipped over the envelope. "Jenni..."
Jenni violently shook her head, now halfway across the room. She'd never liked howlers. "You know it's yours. I don't get howlers. EVER.""Well, that's true enough, but I think you should look at this. It's VERY CLEARLY addressed." Nancy stood up, smirking, and waved the envelope at Jenni.
Jenni ducked around Charlie and positioned herself behind Bill. Nancy let out a frustrated huff and tossed the letter at Charlie. "Tell her it's not mine."
Charlie raised an eyebrow at Nancy as he easily caught the envelope, but then he glanced at it and hurriedly passed it to Bill. "Nancy's right. It's not hers."
Bill shrugged, calmly handing the howler back to Charlie. "She won't open it."
"Well, I don't want it. Nancy, you work there. Open it."
"But it's not mine!" Nancy stood glaring at the other three from where she'd caught the howler Charlie had thrown back at her.
"Uh, it's starting to smoke..."
"I KNOW it's smoking. It WOULDN'T be smoking if its OWNER had just opened it when it came!"
The howler began to smoke more furiously and flap angrily against Nancy's balled up fist.
"Nancy, maybe you should open it..."
"Open the bloody letter, crazy woman!"
"Nancy! Open the damn thing now, before... NOOO!"
"JENNIFER FERGUSON!!"
Jenni sank to the floor as soon as her name sounded. Her first howler. EVER. And it had to be in front of Bill. Her face flushed to a deep crimson and she wanted nothing more than to run and hide.
"... NEVER MISSED A DAY OF WORK UNTIL NOW. FOUR WEEKS IN LESS THAN SIX MONTHS TIME. UNCALLED FOR. I WOULD HAVE EXPECTED THIS FROM OTHER EMPLOYEES..."
Nancy bridled at that, but Jenni couldn't hear her objections over the all-encompassing noise.
"... A DISGRACE TO THE PAPER..."
Jenni didn't even dare to look at Nancy. She was supposed to be setting an EXAMPLE for the younger witch.
"... DEADLINE APPROACHING AND NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT..."
If only she could just disappear.
"... JOB AT STAKE IF YOU DON'T RETURN IMMEDIATELY!!"
"And you said you never get howlers." Nancy grinned at her friend. "Sounds like our presences are required, or at least yours is. Maybe they just fired me."
As if in answer, another owl flew in the open window and dropped a second red envelope onto the floor.
"Dammit," Nancy said, going red-faced as Bill and Charlie laughed. In the next instant, Jenni had the envelope open.
"NANCY GWIN!!"
"Gee, thanks, Jenni..." Nancy groaned, digging through the piles of kleenex left on the floor for her shoes.
"... BRAND NEW PROMOTION, WHAT HAPPENED TO RESPECT? EXCESSIVE AND SUSPICIOUS USE OF SICK DAYS. NO ARTICLES TO SHOW SINCE LAST MONTH..."
"All right, all right, we get the point," Nancy muttered, gathering up the rest of her things, and grabbing her book from a grinning Charlie. "Time to go, Jenni." She fled the room, pursued by the ringing voice of her boss.
"... REPORT IMMEDIATELY OR FIND ANOTHER JOB..."
And now... please forgive us our bad bad bad posting history and review?? :)