Chapter Nine

Why One Should Never Give an Owl Canary Creams

After a few minutes of waiting for Madam Pomfrey to come back, they heard voices in the hall and looked up, hoping she'd returned with Dumbledore. They received quite a shock when the Weasley twins walked in instead.

"Fred, George!" Harry said, surprised but pleased. "How've you been?"

"Hey, guys," George said. "All right, you?"

"We're hanging in there," Ron muttered, giving Hermione a quick glance.

"What just happened in the Great Hall, guys?" Fred asked eagerly. "Everyone was all stunned silence or whispers or laughing Slytherins. Neville told us you were up here."

"Um…" Harry said, trying to think fast.

"Why didn't you two answer my letter?" Ron asked, quickly changing the subject. "I was beginning to think something had happened to Pig."

"Right, about that…" Fred said guiltily.

Hermione looked from Fred to George and back to Fred. Forgetting the spell, she asked, "What have you two done now?"

Harry and Ron froze, cringing. George stared at Hermione in disbelief, and Fred looked like it would have been less shocking to sneak up and hit him with a cinderblock. Before Harry or Ron could explain, Fred recovered from his surprise and grinned mischievously.

"Sure, Hermione," he told her, "I'd love to have sex with you. Of course, I always figured you'd prefer beds, but if you'd rather do it in the library… well, who am I to argue?"

All the color drained from Hermione's face. She looked over at Harry in terror, who nodded, confirming her worst fears by turning to the twins and saying, "Er… guys, Malfoy cast a spell on her. 'Do you want to have sex in the library' is all she can say."

"Damn," Fred said, not the least bit embarrassed (as opposed to Hermione, who was turning Gryffindor scarlet), "knew I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up."

"Shut up, Fred," Ron snapped as George snickered.

"Anyway, why didn't you write us back?" Harry asked Fred and George, trying to head off an argument between the twins and Ron and trying to take the focus off Hermione, who looked like she wanted to feed herself to a manticore.

"Oh, well, see, we wanted to—" Fred began.

"We have lots of good ideas, you see—" George said.

"But when Pig arrived, we were trying to convince someone to taste a Canary Cream—"

"And the idiotic excuse for an owl swooped down and ate it," George finished.

"So?" Harry said suspiciously.

"Well, Canary Creams aren't meant for owls, they're meant for humans," Fred explained.

"It caused a few… side effects," George added carefully.

"What the hell have you done to my owl?" Ron shouted.

"We didn't do anything!" George said in alarm. "He's the one who ate it, and as far as we can tell, he's fine—"

"Shouldn't he have molted by now?" Harry said worriedly.

"If he was human, he would have," George said sadly.

"But as he's an owl, he's been in our shop ever since it happened," Fred said. "It's been a real killer for business, he's enormous, almost as tall as Hagrid, and you know how hyper he is—"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Ron demanded.

"We had no way of sending you a letter, did we?" Fred said. "We've been really busy, and we gave our owl to Mum since Errol's useless. And the post office in Diagon Alley has been in shambles ever since that one Death Eater attack, they still haven't rebuilt it—"

"How long would it have taken you to Apparate to Hogsmeade and run up here?" Ron asked angrily.

"What could you have done? It would have just upset you," George said, though no one bought his brotherly tone. "Even if we thought it would have done any good to come tell you, it's not a good idea to leave the store too often when there's a hyperactive canary the size of a baby whale in it."

"Why didn't you bring him back!" Ron yelled.

"What were we supposed to do, Ron? Teach him to Apparate? Try shoving him in the fireplace to use the Floo Network?"

"We actually did try that one, but it didn't work… but now we're having a bigger fireplace installed next month, just in case."

"Anyway, we had to wait for the Ministry to approve a Portkey."

"And that took a month?" Ron demanded.

"Hey, you try explaining to the Department of Magical Transportation that you need a Portkey to take a seven-foot-tall canary to Hogwarts!" Fred replied indignantly. "Not very many people will automatically approve something like that, you know!"

"They actually sent the Department of Magical Law Enforcement over to see if we were trying to obtain a Portkey illegally," George added. "Mind you, once they heard Pig squawking at them all happily they called for reinforcements, thinking it was a trap and we were trying to ambush them with a herd of hippogriffs."

"We spent the night in a holding cell for that one, you know," Fred said irritably. "We explained at the arraignment, but they still wanted a full investigation and everything. Once they stopped laughing, that is. They couldn't understand why we'd have a giant bird and why we'd want to take it to Hogwarts."

"So now we owe Bill money for posting bail," George continued with a sigh. "And we almost got in deep shit for violating the Ban on Experimental Breeding, they were sure that's how we'd done it."

"Plus we had to halt our inventing to figure out what to do," Fred said sulkily. "We thought about shrinking him, but we were worried that eventually he'd turn back into an owl and be too small to ever see again."

"Will you two ever go more than three minutes without being complete whack jobs?" Hermione said to Fred in exasperation… just as Ginny walked in.

"Um…" Ginny said, glancing from Hermione to Fred in confusion. "I'm not asking."

"It's a repeated phrase spell," Harry told her. "So far she's asked me, Ron, Malfoy, Madam Pomfrey, and Fred to have sex."

"MALFOY?" Ginny exclaimed. "Oh, no—"

"It was really bad," Hermione moaned.

Ginny blinked. "Okay, Hermione, you know I love you, but there is nothing creepier than you looking at me and asking me to sleep with you in the library."

Hermione cringed and Harry patted her knee comfortingly. "Anyway," Ginny said, "my friends said you guys brought Hermione here… they said it was something about Malfoy, but they didn't really want to say what…"

Hermione sighed pitifully; Harry leaned over to give her a quick hug.

"Don't worry, Hermione, we'll get him for this," Harry told her.

"Yeah, and now you have us for suggestions," Fred added.

"And if worse comes to worse, I hear Hagrid's got a giant canary we can sick on Malfoy," George said cheerfully. Ron glared at him.

"So," Fred went on, "tell us all about Hermione waking up naked next to Snape."

Hermione fumed silently throughout the search for her cure; by the time she got it, her anger with Ron had reached the breaking point.

"HOW could you tell THEM about that!" were the first words out of her mouth when she could finally say something other than the repeating phrase.

"I wanted them to know how serious it was," Ron whined.

"So you told them that!"

Hermione screamed at Ron all the way back to Gryffindor tower, while Harry and Ginny tried to calm her down with Fred and George following and laughing hysterically. Hermione finally stopped when they reached the portrait hole (only because the rest of the school didn't know about Malfoy's first prank; she was still plenty mad) and stormed up to her dormitory, Ginny following to do damage control.

"Mental, that one," George said in reference to Hermione.

"This is all your fault," Ron snapped at Fred.

"Hey, how was I supposed to know that you don't want her to know that I know what you know?" Fred said reasonably.

"What?" George said blankly.

"First you turn my owl into a canary and then you piss off my girlfriend!" Ron yelled.

"Ron, it's been a long day," Harry said wearily; it was now almost midnight, and they'd spent the entire day in the hospital wing. "Hermione will calm down, okay? She was just pissed off about accidentally hitting on Malfoy in front of the entire school."

"Yeah, I can't see where she'd be upset by that," George deadpanned.

"Let's just discuss ideas for the war," Harry continued. "Hermione will be fine come morning."

The Weasley twins had such incredible ideas that Harry and Ron eventually started taking notes; one and a half rolls of parchment and two and a half hours later, they had enough ideas to keep Malfoy down for about three years. The twins left around two in the morning, and Harry and Ron went upstairs to sleep, both of them anxious for the next day.

Hermione did calm down by the morning, as Harry had predicted, but Parvati and Lavender made a few rude comments about the library to Hermione and she refused to go into the Great Hall for breakfast; Harry, Ron, and Ginny grabbed a bunch of food and headed out onto the grounds to discuss their news ideas from Fred and George. By the time they split up for classes, Harry, Ron and Hermione to Care of Magical Creatures and Ginny to Herbology, they had decided to wait until Sunday to pull their next prank on Malfoy, as the first Quidditch match, Gryffindor versus Slytherin, was on Saturday.

Unfortunately, the prank war had to be put on hold after the match, as Harry, angry at Crabbe for hitting Ginny with a Bludger, had retaliated by grabbing a Gryffindor Beater's bat and whacking a Bludger straight into Crabbe's gut. The force of the Bludger knocked Crabbe right off the end of his broom… and onto Malfoy, whose Nimbus 2001 wasn't able to hold the extra weight. The two of them went crashing to the ground some forty feet below, and between the impact and the crushing of Malfoy's bones from Crabbe landing on top of him, Malfoy got stuck in the hospital wing.

Harry's week of detention was well worth it; the only real upset was that Ginny had to share the hospital wing with Malfoy and Crabbe overnight, but Malfoy was still unconscious and Crabbe was too stupid to engage in any verbal sparring matches. It took Malfoy six days to regain consciousness, and three more weeks before he could be released; when Pomfrey finally let him go, it was mid-December. Before the Gryffindors could get started again, however, the prank war was thrown for a major loop.

It was a Friday, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione were on their way back from the hospital wing, where they'd all been having scales removed from their faces and arms, when they noticed a large crowd in the entrance hall. The three of them hurried forward; it was something akin to when Umbridge had fired Trelawney or when Fred and George had escaped Hogwarts. Students had formed a large circle, and in the center were two people Harry, Ron and Hermione couldn't see, shouting at one another.

Even as Harry, Ron, and Hermione pushed through the throng of students for a better look, the two people in the middle of the circle began yelling loud enough for them to hear over the whispers and laughter of the crowd.

"You're so pathetic!" Ginny shouted.

"You're such a bitch!" Dean Thomas shouted back.

Ron, who was almost to the front of the students, went very still. Then he surged forward with a bellow that could have scared a troll.

Harry and Hermione had both become rather used to this sort of thing; over the past few years, it had become even more of a problem, as Ron had gotten taller and stronger and harder to stop. Even as other students leaped out of Ron's way in shock and fear, Harry and Hermione leaped at him. Hermione jumped on Ron's back and wrapped her legs around him, slowing him down long enough for Harry to get in front of him and hold him back.

Dean was beyond startled at Ron's abrupt appearance—well, that wasn't surprising, really, few people weren't startled when a six-foot-two, muscular guy came running at them with a girl riding his back and another guy in front looking like he was trying to stop a freight train.

However, Dean recovered quickly. Seeing Ron was stopped for the moment, Dean turned back to Ginny with a scowl.

"Oh, look," he snarled. "Big brother's here to stick his huge ugly nose in where it doesn't belong."

"You shut your mouth about my brother," Ginny said contemptuously.

"Why should I? All he ever does is nose around, him and the rest of your stupid brothers, running around and snorting like bulls," Dean shot back.

"Don't start in on my brothers!" Ginny shouted. "You're the one who wouldn't stand up to Ron! Stop acting like Ron ended our relationship! News flash—I didn't dump you because Ron's overprotective, I dumped you because you're a prick!"

"No, you dumped me so you could go whore around with other guys!" Dean roared.

Harry dug in his heels as Ron surged forward again. Slowly, Harry was inched forward towards Dean and Ginny, but neither of them was paying attention to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Both had drawn their wands.

"Callistiaro!" Ginny screamed.

"Montreavi!" Dean yelled at the same time.

Green light met blue, and fused into a bright golden ball of energy. It was a rare thing in a duel; few cases had occurred throughout history. A new spell was formed, and it would become a battle of wills, of wands, not unlike Harry's battle with Voldemort in his fourth year, to see who would escape the spells' effects and who would be hit by them.

Dean caved first; his arm buckled and he decided to cut his losses and run, diving to the side in an attempt to get out of the path of the spell. Unfortunately, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been right behind him.

The energy ball hit Hermione with enough force to knock her off of Ron, and she went flying back into the crowd… straight into Draco Malfoy, who'd been watching the fight with interest…

End Notes: This chapter is where I got the idea for my spin-off fic, which has the same title as this chapter. Well, review if you'd like to; I'm working on getting everything back up, guys. Sorry for the wait.