Harry Potter and The Fate We Make

Chapter 20: Weasley's Wartime Wizarding Wheezes

A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter.

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July 30, 1995

The next morning, encouraged by Sirius and Remus, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick and a very reluctant Snape, Moody, Tonks, Kingsley and the New Marauders all met in the dueling room. There was a fair-sized crate by the door.

"We thought after yesterday." George said.

"You might want to see this." Fred finished.

To keep everyone else from getting whiplash by the time Fred and George finished the presentation, Remus took over. "You've all been dealing with the rather explosive results of our trial and error all month, so we thought you might want to see what we've been coming up with."

To their surprise, Remus and Sirius then conjured a chest-high wall. "You lot might want to stay behind the wall ... and keep your heads down." He pried the lid off the crate and picked something up out of it. It was a ball, a bit bigger than his hand, colored a plain silver. Remus, Fred and George quickly joined everyone else behind the wall.

"This one is designed for use against magical creatures with thick or magic-resistant hides." He explained, then joined them behind the wall before tossing the ball as hard as he could away from them and promptly ducking behind the wall so that only his eyes and the very top of his head was peeking over. Everyone else followed suit.

The moment the ball hit the floor on the other side of the room, it exploded. Silver colored spikes, each half the length of a finger and about half as thick, shot out in all directions very fast. Whatever propelled them lost steam after about five or ten feet, and they clattered to the floor, sliding a few more feet.

"We got the idea from a muggle weapon." Fred admitted.

"It's not got as much oomph as we'd like yet." George complained.

"As you saw, the spikes don't go far. But if we can work the bugs out, we'll have a way to at least do some serious damage to things that are resistant to spells." Remus finished.

McGonagall and Flitwick looked impressed. It was harder to tell with Dumbledore. The rest of the New Marauders thought it was brilliant.

George came out from behind the wall and dug around in the box, pulling out another ball. This one was about the size of a snitch, and a bright yellow color. "And then there's this one. We won't show you this one." George said, grinning widely.

"It works, but I doubt we'd get a willing volunteer." Fred said. His grin was as wide as George's

"It's based on their Canary Cremes." Remus said. "A more distilled, specialized form of the potion used to force the transformation. This one transforms only the person. Their clothes and anything else they're holding or carrying, like a wand or portkey, don't transform with them. It has to get on skin to work, and so far we've only gotten it to last about five or ten seconds, but if nothing else, it'll be a rather effective distracter."

Harry eyed the ball. And shuddered. "Right. Mental note." He said out loud. "Do NOT throw that at Voldemort. There are just some things no one is meant to see."

Everyone but Dumbledore, Snape, and Moody reacted to that. Everyone but those three cringed, and almost everyone was more than a little green in the face. The ones that weren't were actively choking back bile.

"Mate, you have a very disturbing mind. You know that, right?" Ron asked, sounding completely horrified and rather sickened.

"We've got another that's based on the canary cremes, too, but this one is meant for allies." Remus said. He pulled a bright green bite-sized square out of the crate. "They force the transformation, and you keep your clothes and other things, but the canary is smaller, closer to the size of a real one, which would give an ally in trouble a way to escape, or get in somewhere when it's not possible to do so as a person. They'll have to move fast, though, because it still only lasts about a minute, same as the cremes. We made a pellet that creates a fog, too, so you toss the fog pellet, and while no one can see what's going on, eat the creme and get clear. The Death Eaters'll be left scratching their heads."

"Our next offering is this girl." Remus said, pulling another good-sized ball out of the crate. This one was white. "We've worked the hardest on this one, and it's our pride and joy, really. It's designed for use when we get somewhere first and have a few moments to set up. Watch." Remus walked to the far side of the room, conjured a stone plinth about chest high, and then tapped the ball once. It started scrolling through colors, one every few seconds. When it got to green, he tapped it again. The ball immediately went clear. Remus set the ball on the plinth, tapped it once more, and then hustled back towards them. Then he conjured a bit of stone and floated it past the ball.

They all jumped a mile when an Avada Kedavra green bolt shot out of the ball at the chunk of stone.

"Holy ... " Harry sputtered. He wasn't alone. That had looked exactly like the curse!

"It's not the actual curse." Remus said. "It's a simple color spell, and will have no effect if it hits. In the heat of a fight, no one is going to want to take that chance when they see a spell coming at them. The balls have a very rudimentary tracking charm built in ... anything that moves within a certain range of them gets targeted and aimed at, using the colored bolt. We managed to get a good range of colors with a color-change spell, so you can pick what you want the Death Eaters to think is being cast at them. It also has a time delay ... that's what that last tap was for ... that allows whoever sets it up to get out of its range before it starts tracking movement and shooting at people."

"This is brilliant, you guys!" Harry said, eyeing the ball. Even Moody looked impressed at this one.

"Next on the menu." Remus said, pulling out a palm-sized black-colored ball. "Is this one." He and the others retreated to behind the wall again, and Remus tossed the ball, rather gently, over the wall. It hit the ground ... and grew feet. It immediately hustled forward, and started multiplying until there was about six of them. When they'd jammed themselves into corners, they stopped and hunkered down. Seconds later, they exploded. Quite respectable explosions at that.

"They're meant for diversions, though they can cause quite a bit of damage. Basically, you toss these, and they find some remote corner to go off in ... and hopefully draw any Death Eaters inside away from where you are."

"We're also working." George said.

"On concentrated versions of the Puking Pastille." Fred said.

"And the Ton-Tongue Toffee." George said.

"On the strength of if they can't speak, they're at the very least going to be deprived of their favorite spells." Remus said. "And if they're busy puking their guts out, they're not going to be in any shape to cast at all. We're also working on something stronger than the fog pellets, and a way to imitate invisibility cloaks, but none of that's ready yet."

"This is quite an astounding display, gentlemen." Dumbledore said, eyeing the box. "My most sincere congratulations. If you need any assistance in the final stages of preparing your inventions, I would be most willing to assist."

"I would as well." Flitwick agreed. McGonagall nodded.

Snape, of course, just glowered and sneered, but he didn't actually say anything, which from him was as good as a compliment.

The crate was packed back up, and hand-carried (evidently he didn't want to risk the crate bumping into things if it was floating) out of the dueling room by Remus. Snape, McGonagall, Kingsley, Moody and Dumbledore all left, off to deal with the troubles of the day, but, perhaps, with a bit more hope than they'd had earlier this morning. Remus returned a few moments later.

"All right, everyone. We're going to be having another battle. Tonks, Sirius and I against you guys."

It had been a while since the last time they'd done this, Harry thought as everyone scattered while Flitwick started conjuring things for them to hide behind. Since before the dreams had started in earnest. Actually, now that Harry thought about it, the last time, Neville had still had his old wand.

Since then, they'd all improved individually. The twins had transformed from lackluster duelists into a rather scary duo. The closeness that allowed them to finish each other's sentences and bamboozle everyone as to who was who meant that they worked as a seamless unit in a fight. Hermione, predictably, knew the most spells. Her catalogue was beginning to give Flitwick's a run for its money. She, however, remained a mediocre dueler, not because she didn't know spells, but because she simply wasn't good at thinking and acting fast in a crunch. If she had a few moments and some space, she was downright scary, but when the spells flew thick and fast, she had a tendency to flounder. Ginny and Neville were proving to be powerhouses, thanks to a combination of having had secondhand wands for years and innate power. Interestingly, while Neville was still shy and hesitant, he was beginning to show glimmers of self-confidence. Discovering he was not the near-squib he'd always thought himself to be was doing wonders for his self-esteem.

As for Harry, well, he wasn't quite as strong as Ginny and Neville, or at least it seemed so to him. On the other hand, neither of them had proven to be capable of wandless magic. At least not yet. Not that Harry was having much luck with it himself. Granted he'd been more than a bit distracted recently, but learning to cast wandlessly was still problematic. Since that first, wholly unexpected shield, Harry had managed to pull something out of his hat twice in individual duels with Flitwick, but both times he'd been in quite a jam. Anytime he tried to do something wandlessly under calm, relaxed conditions nothing happened. Not so much as a twitch.

Flitwick had concentrated on teaching them to work as a team, as it was the only way they'd have a chance of surviving against far-better-trained adult wizards until they had a chance to catch up. Fred and George were planning on heading to the Ministry later today to get their apparation licenses, which would open an avenue of fighting for them unavailable to the younger Marauders. Not for lack of them asking, certainly, but there were lines that even Sirius and Remus were unwilling to cross, and learning to apparate two years early was one of them. The dangers, evidently, outweighed the benefits. After learning about splinching, Harry had been inclined to agree. Harry shook off the thoughts and concentrated on the fight, ducking behind a chunk of stone, a spell whizzing past his elbow as he did, only just missing him.

After that, the spells flew thick and fast. The adults had graduated to using stingers, stunners, and other low-powered spells instead of just color-marking spells, which added a definite sense of urgency to the whole thing. Worse, Tonks seemed to have been absorbed into the Marauder collective, working almost seamlessly with Sirius and Remus, rather than being mostly on her own. It made tackling them harder. Before this, Tonks had always been the weak point.

"Ginny, Fred, George, Sirius is yours. Ron, Hermione, you've got Remus. Neville, you and me're going for Tonks." Harry called.

Everyone nodded and split into their groups, diving for cover in different spots. They concentrated their spell-fire on their assigned targets. Harry did not at all envy the twins and Ginny. Sirius was bouncing around the room like a demented house-elf. He wasn't apparating, but he seemed to be taking an unholy glee in diving from place to place as fast as he could, firing off spells as he went. Remus and Tonks were both opting for a somewhat less frenetic style of dueling, and were slightly easier targets for it. Slightly.

Hermione and Ron actually managed to get Remus down with a Jelly-Legs early on, but he was back up quickly. Tonks was proving more elusive, managing to evade his and Neville's spells by a whisker. Harry had completely lost track of Sirius by the three minute mark, and had to trust the twins and Ginny to keep him busy and unable to hex them from behind. Remus and Tonks, though, were sticking fairly close to each other, so Harry was able to keep at least one Marauder in his sight-line.

And then there was a shout of triumph from one corner of the room. Harry tossed an Expelliarmus at Tonks before chancing a look, and let out a whoop when he spotted Sirius flat on the floor, victim of a petrificus totalus. It looked like the twins and Ginny had somehow been able to herd Sirius into the corner, where he hadn't been able to get away from them, and somehow managed to nail him with the spell, which marked the first time any of them had managed to hit Sirius so far in the practice duels. They'd gotten both Remus and Tonks a couple times each, but Sirius' completely unpredictable style of dueling made him really, really hard to hit. At least as far as the New Marauders were concerned.

Of course, the distraction cost them. A few moments later, Remus shot a finite at Sirius and Sirius managed to nail one of the twins with a petrificus before they could dive for cover. Tonks got Hermione, who'd made the mistake of standing up to see what was going on. Very shortly after that, all of the New Marauders were needing a finite incantatem, caught in a flurry of spells from the three adults.

"Right." Flitwick, who'd been staying out of it near the door. "What did we learn from that?"

"Don't get distracted." Harry said.

"Precisely. Other than that, you have done quite well today. We shall be doing this every week this next month, as you've all graduated to the point of learning some truly damaging dueling spells, and will need the practice before school begins. I will unfortunately not be able to do much tutoring after that."

Everyone headed out. Fred intercepted Harry at the door, and handed him a small vial. Harry gave it a confused look, then peered at Fred. Fred grinned, glanced over his shoulder at the Marauders, and then mouthed 'shampoo' at Harry. Harry blinked in confusion for a few moments before it clicked.

Shampoo. The Prank. In all the furor over the visions, and his resultant lack of sleep several nights running, Harry had completely forgotten about it. Clearly, Fred and George had not. Harry grinned and nodded, then pocketed the vial. He hurried upstairs. With luck, Remus would be distracted just long enough ...

He was. If only barely. Harry just managed to get the contents of the vial into Remus' shampoo and get to the library before Remus came upstairs. Fortunately, he didn't head straight for his room. Instead, he joined Harry in the library.