A/N: I really have managed to get these first four chapters out quick, haven't I? Well, what can I say, I've been inspired. We'll see how fast the rest of the chapters come, but here's the latest.

Chapter 4

Fool Me Twice...

Jack and Abby were seated on the couch in the living room beside each other, their heads slightly hung low as Ron paced back and forth behind them. Ron had been doing his best to stay true to his promise and wait for Hermione to come down, but his affection for the two kids sitting in front of him was too great for him to let them be scolded in the way he imagined Hermione was about to do. He had to let Jack and Abby know how he himself felt about the matter.

"You soaked her underwear in meat so Nigel would tear up her pants and attack her butt," said Ron in a tone which suggested accusation as he continued to pace. He sighed. "Guys, as much as I enjoy a good prank on someone else ..." he glanced over in the direction of the stairs to make sure Hermione wasn't in earshot before leaning his head in close between them, "... and this was a good one, I have to admit ..." he and the kids shared a quick laugh, "... Hermione's still my girlfriend and you shouldn't be doing that kind of stuff to her. She's nice."

"Oh, is she?" Jack asked pointedly.

Ron shot Jack a curious look. "What do you mean by that?"

Jack shrugged innocently. "Just that because you're our favorite cousin, we want you to be sure that whoever your girlfriend is, she's someone you can trust."

"And that you know her as well as you'd like to," Abby added on helpfully. "We just want the best for you, Ron."

Their answers took Ron by surprise, not because of what they said but rather how it showed that Jack and Abby were being mature about the whole thing. Well, mature in theory, at least. "Well, I really do appreciate that but by now, I'm pretty sure Hermione and I -"

"-TRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! YOU ARE TRESPASSING! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!"

"ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!"

The abrupt burst of sound made all three Weasleys literally jump in surprise. It quickly filled the house and as Ron stuffed his fingers into his ears, he could make out that the racket was coming from upstairs.

"WHAT IS THAT?" he yelled above the din.

Jack and Abby shared a quick grin. "FOLLOW US!" declared Jack as he and Abby led the way upstairs with Ron right on their heels.

When they got to the upper level, they saw that the door to Jack's room was wide open, and it was obvious that the incessant noise was coming from there. But it was the sight waiting for them in the room that made Ron, Abby and Jack stop in their tracks. Ron looked on in wide-eyed disbelief while Jack and Abby burst out laughing.

From the ceiling hung a net made of live snakes, a few of which were trying to nip at the prisoner inside who kept jerking away from their mouths: Hermione. She appeared very bedraggled and her face was as red as a tomato, but not from anger or embarrassment, from the colored substance that was smeared all over it. When her eyes found the Weasleys, Hermione leaned forward eagerly.

"GET ME DOWN!" she exclaimed.

As Jack went over to his dresser and reached up to push a secret button on the radio which caused his homemade siren to turn off, Ron took a few steps into the room and extracted his wand, which he used to make the snake net vanish. Of course, this meant that Hermione went tumbling to the floor with a small shriek.

"What happened?" asked Ron as Hermione picked herself up and dusted off her clothes. He knew it was a rather stupid question in retrospect, but it was the only sentence that came to mind.

Hermione leveled a shaking finger at Jack and Abby. "Ask them!" she snarled. Now, she really was angry, and the fact that her face was already red made the action so comical, Jack and Abby couldn't help but giggle into their fists.

"It looks like you walked into the Burglar Traps I set up, Hermione," Jack said as he tried to control his laughter. "I guess thanks are in order."

"What?" Hermione spat.

"Well ... at least now I know they work! I have valuable stuff in here that needs protecting!"

"Yeah," giggled Abby. "And you got caught red-faced!" She snickered uncontrollably at her little joke.

Hermione gritted her teeth. "I wouldn't have had to come in here in the first place if you hadn't taken my wand!"

"Oh, is that what this is all about?" Jack asked casually. He reached into his pocket and produced Hermione's wand, which he just as casually held out to her. "Well, here, you can have it back."

Hermione closed the distance between them and snatched the object out of his hand without a word. Admittedly, it caught her off-guard that he was willing to confess to his crime and give her wand back so soon, but she chose not to dwell on it. She stuffed it into her own pocket and addressed Ron. "I'm going to go wash my face off ..." she glared down at Jack. "... assuming I can?"

"Yeah, it'll come right off," replied Jack as if it was one of the most obvious facts in the world.

Hermione sighed and moved to make her way to the bathroom but Ron put out a hand to stop her. "Hold on, Hermione. Jack, Abby, do you have something you want to say to her?"

Jack and Abby briefly looked at each other, then down at their shoes solemnly. "Sorry," they muttered together.

"We promise that'll be the end of it," said Abby as she looked up into Hermione's eyes genuinely.

All of the white-hot anger that had been coursing through Hermione from being turned into a prank plaything seemed to melt away in that instant, due to the face Abby was making being too adorable to resist. Hermione sighed again and swallowed what was left of her resentment. "It's ... alright. I know that this sort of stuff runs in the family. As long as you're aware what you did was wrong, and that you're sorry about it."

Jack and Abby nodded.

Ron gave her a thankful smile and she turned and walked away. She entered the bathroom and slammed the door behind her a bit more forcefully than she meant to.

Back in Jack's room, Ron surveyed the damage. "Alright, you two, I can help clean this up."

"No, that's okay," said Jack. "It's our mess. We'll clean it up."

Once again, Ron had to be proud at the level of maturity they were showing. "Okay, then. Well, I'll be in my room unpacking and such. I think it's best to give Hermione some space and let her cool down. But if she asks, tell her that's where I'll be."

Jack and Abby smiled back. "Okay!"

Ron gave them one last friendly grin and departed off to his guest bedroom. Once he was gone, Abby crept over to the doorway to confirm that he did indeed go there, and even got an extra dose of luck when he closed his door. She turned to her brother and gave him a thumbs-up.

Jack smirked and went over to kneel beside his bed. Abby joined him soon after. Together, the siblings reached underneath Jack's bed, grabbed hold of a "special" giant box he kept stored under there and pulled it out.

"We might need to hurry," Jack told Abby as he glanced at his Golden Snitch watch.

"Would it be strange if I felt bad that we're still doing this?" asked Abby.

Jack shook his head. "Nah. I mean, yeah, Ron did ask us to stop, but by the end of this weekend, Ron will be thanking us. You'll see. Now, come on."

She hadn't been keeping track of the time, but by Hermione's estimation, it took her a good fifteen minutes to properly scrub the red goop off of her face. A dark red washcloth had been employed for the task and by the time Hermione was done, traces of the substance were visible on it. Her initial reaction was to use her wand to clean it off, but Hermione remembered that her mud-covered clothes from earlier were in line to be manually washed, so she figured adding a stained washcloth to the pile wouldn't matter too much. So once her face was dry, she kept the washcloth in hand and started to head downstairs.

In the hallway, a creaking sound from behind her made Hermione look curiously around to discover the source, but there was nobody and nothing there that could have made the noise. Her next instinct was to glance over at Jack's bedroom door, but it was closed. For a moment, Hermione even considered pressing her ear up against it to gauge whether or not one or both of the kids were really in there.

No, they promised they were done. Jack even gave me back my wand to prove it.

Hermione resumed her trip downstairs and made her way through what was now an eerily quiet house. Where was everybody? Her assumption that the laundry room wasn't too far away from the kitchen proved to be correct. In fact, it wasn't so much a room as it was a slightly overgrown closet, but that was the norm for laundry rooms on average. The first thing Hermione saw upon opening the doors was a basket containing her mud-stained clothes, so she dropped the washcloth on top of them, closed the doors and went back upstairs.

When she reached the second landing, Hermione noticed that the door to Ron's room was closed as well. She briefly considered going in and telling him that she was all calmed down, but ultimately decided there was still some residual anger left which she could rid herself of by unpacking her things.

Maybe I should make Jack and Abby a snack something to show that everything's really okay, Hermione thought while turning her doorknob and stepping into her room.

As it turned out, everything was not okay. It didn't even occur to Hermione that she hadn't left her door closed. If she had, then she probably would have been able to anticipate and avoid the shower of rancid-smelling dark green fluid that rained down on her from a strategically-placed bucket over the door. Hermione reflexively dipped her head down as whatever it was cascaded all over her, not only staining her clothes but also making them smell horrid.

"EUGH!" Hermione flecked some of it off her fingers and reluctantly lifted an arm to her nose to sniff. The stench made her gag. "STI - STI - STINKSAP?!" She stomped out of the puddle that had accumulated at her feet and began looking around. "JACK! ABBY! COME OUT THIS INSTANT! YOU TWO ARE SO DEAD!"

But neither of them were anywhere to be seen as Hermione stood there breathing through her mouth, nor did their laughter ring out from anywhere. She let out a frustrated grunt. It was then that Hermione noticed that her bag and all the items that had been dumped out onto her bed were now gone, as if they had never been there to begin with. Hermione was about to move forward to investigate when she heard the faint sound of chuckling coming from behind the closed doors of the closet.

"Got you!" she said through gritted teeth as she approached the closet in determination. Any sense of déjà vu concerning this whole situation completely escaped her.

Hermione grabbed the handles of the closet doors and yanked them open, expecting to find the two pranksters inside, but no such luck. Instead, she found the same portable radio from Jack's dresser seated on a stool with the laughter emanating from it. But it was only a fleeting view, because the next thing she knew, Hermione was being showered with yet another onslaught of something, only this time it was thick and gooey. The new substance did a better job of not only covering her entire person, but also making her feel weighed down. When Hermione attempted to move away after spotting a large upside-down bucket high above in the closet connected to a string which was in turn connected to the inner doors, she slipped and landed on her bottom.

The laughter from the radio persisted mockingly.

From the consistency and the smell, which wasn't strong enough to mask that of the Stinksap, Hermione could tell that the new goop on her was molasses.

A string of obscenities ran through her mind, but all Hermione could manage was a loud and feral grunt of rage. Carefully, she got to her feet, which was an effort in and of itself given the stickiness of the molasses, and held onto the dresser to steady herself once she was on her feet. Above the dresser was a mirror, and when Hermione got a look at herself, she let out a groan.

The dark green of the Stinksap had been replaced by the deep brown of the molasses, which plastered Hermione's hair to her head and shoulders and reinforced the Swamp Creature image she'd had when she'd been covered in mud. She was starting to think that had been a prank, too.

Her own reflection had distracted Hermione from the red police car light that was sitting on top of her dresser. That is, until it started going off, flashing its red light. The recording of laughter on the radio then turned to an all-too familiar shout.

"INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! YOU ARE TRESPASSING! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!"

"OH, COME ON!" Hermione yelled.

Then came something on the recorded message that was new. "PREPARE FOR PUNISHMEMT!"

"Punishment?" Hermione asked uncertainly as she gazed over at the radio. "Wha-"

Her question was answered in the form of a sudden and sharp pain on her butt which felt like a spank.

"Ouch!"

Hermione turned her head back to see what had done it and spotted a ping pong paddle attached to a string that came down at an angle from the ceiling. It seemed that Jack and Abby had dipped into their father's supply of Muggle objects for this whole prank, as evidenced by the paddle and police light. Hermione was brought back to the present when she noticed that the ping pong paddle had traveled back up the length of string by itself and was now descending back towards her bottom.

In a panic, Hermione attempted to move out of the paddle's line of fire, but found that the sticky molasses was doing an all-too-good job of holding her to the dresser. She could only struggle uselessly as the paddle struck her again on the butt, and it felt more forceful this time.

"JACK! ABBY!"

To her left, Hermione saw movement in the open doorway, and there were Jack and Abby, who were howling in laughter while pointing fingers at Hermione and her current predicament.

"IT'S - OW! - NOT - OUCH! - FUNNY! OOOOH!"

With each hit of her rear, the ping pong paddle increased in speed and forcefulness, which just made the two young Weasleys laugh even harder.

But once they had caught their breath, Jack stepped further inside. "We're sorry, Hermione, but we thought you'd like to have your own Anti-Burglar Traps in your room. You never know when someone will come sneaking in who isn't welcome!" He waved a hand in front of his nose. "Pee-yew! It sure does smell in here!"

"GET ... ME ... OUT ... OF ... THIS ... BLASTED ... THING!" Hermione shouted.

"I can't believe you actually fell for the same trick twice!" said Jack. "Ron said you're supposed to be smart." He turned to his sister. "What's that saying, Abby? Fool you once, shame on us, but fool you twice ..."

"Shame on YOU!" Jack and Abby declared together and laughed.

Hermione was too angry to respond. As the paddle continued its work, Jack crossed over to the bed, ducked underneath the paddle when he needed to, got up on Hermione's bed and took out a pair of scissors to sever the string. Once he did, the paddle clattered to the floor.

Next, he and Abby both helped pull Hermione free of the dresser. She stumbled a bit as she regained her balance.

"What did you do with my bag?" she asked sharply.

"Just put it away for you," replied Abby sweetly. She innocently pointed towards the open closet.

Hermione followed the movement and leaned slightly to the right and saw that Abby was telling the truth. Beside the still-blaring radio was Hermione's bag, which had been placed on a shelf in the closet.

"We're just trying to help," Jack added politely.

Yeah, right! Hermione thought venomously. She walked over to the closet, grabbed her bag and faced the children again. "I'm going to shower off ... again. And when I get out, we're all going to have some words!"

"If you say so!" The cheerfulness in Abby's voice made Hermione want to strangle the little girl.

"Never judge a book by its cover," Hermione growled to herself as Jack and Abby filed out of her room, heading off to who knew where.