Detective Work

QLFC Season 10 Round_
Team: Montrose Magpies
Position: Chaser #3
Prompt: Diggory Family
Optional Prompts: Fred Weasley, sibling relationship
Content Warning: N/A
Word Count: 1,533

Detective Work

"What is happening to us?" Fred Weasley said in disbelief for the thousandth time.

The prank, the one they'd been planning for weeks to help the rebellion against Umbridge had literally blown up in their faces. Their plan to set off a bunch of fireworks had been upstaged by another fireworks prank that was the same in almost every way-execpt they went off around the school simultaneously a two day period, ensuring Umbridge a whopping 48 hours of hell. And they took all sorts of forms that were pretty and harmless to the students but to Umbridge, pure carnage. Now, as Fred and George sat in the Gryffindor Common Room as everyone around them talked about the fireworks display and the mysterious person who had been behind it.

"Okay, let's go over it again. How did we get upstaged?" Fred asked.

"Well, we've always known we've had a companion prankster since our third year."

"Yeah, but she-didn't do anything of this scale," George said. They had decided the mysterious prankster was a she after some very good handwriting (in comparison to theirs) had appeared on one of their joke items thanking them for their antics.

"Her pranks were always small, making the toilets howl when someone used them or making snow fall in class. She even added on to ours. But this…."

To Fred and George being upstaged was unforgivable. Especially when it came to making Umbridge miserable.

"We need to catch her," Fred said.

"No, let her be," George insisted. To be honest, he didn't really care about school or catching the next generation of malcontents. The twins very ever disagreed upon much and this was unusual for their sibling relationship. "Who cares if we are upstaged. More trouble for Umbridge right?"

As much as Fred wanted to listen to George, he couldn't get over it. Who'd gotten so good they'd been upstaged? He wanted to know...but there was no way to know.

"Is there way we can get to know who it is? You know...coordinate?"

"Well," George said. The two, despite detective work not being their strong suite, knew a few basic facts. "We know she's a Gryffindor or has some pretty good informants within Gryffindor because she has known of several of our pranks and added on to them. We also believe it is a female because of her good handwriting and we caught a glimpse of her at one of our pranks. And she has red hair and that's it."

Fred was undeterred."Okay, let's say we do an operation with the remaining fireworks. Lure her or whoever this is out?"

"Spread the word," George said, uncertain. This was a new dynamic in their sibling relationship.

"Yes, we'll include a place, but a fairly wide timeline. We'll sit and wait."

"Where?"

"Right outside Umbridge's office."

"Okay," George said.

It went disastrously wrong. That was the word Fred had for it. Having set the box down, the two waited behind a school corridor for anything to happen. Just five minutes after they arrived, they were shocked to see a fuse they knew they hadn't installed suddenly light right in front of them! And there was no one in sight.

"RUN!" Fred yelled.

The Weasley twins sprinted for a nearby corridor with a tapestry hiding it and made it just in time to hear….

BOOM!

The two still had lots of fun listening to Filch and Umbirdge's shrieks and they were heroes in the Gryffindor Common Room that night. Yet to Fred it still didn't make sense. Who was this prankster and why did she create all this mayhem and let them take all the credit? Fred was determined to get to the bottom of it….yet as the weeks went by and she continued to cause havoc no clues turned up.

"So you can do it?" Ginny asked one morning after Christmas. "So Harry can talk with Sirius?"

"Of course. Leave it to us," George reassured her. "We'll set off that Portable Swamp we just perfected a week ago."

Fred wasn't really paying attention. His attention was on another girl in the library who was packing her bags, but seemed to be listening in on their conversation. There was something familiar about her.

"Fine, we'll set it off tomorrow night just after classes."

Ginny smiled and left distracting Fred for a moment who looked back at the other girl who had also vanished. Fred couldn't put his finger on it, but an idea came to him. He continued to mull it over as they worked on setting up the Portable Swamp. When they finished, Fred decided to go back just for a moment.

"George, I"ll catch up with you later. Tell Flitwick I'll be late."

George was confused but chalked it up to Fred wanting to check on the Portable Swamp. As Fred walked to the corridor where they had hidden the swamp he saw someone already there. Hiding behind a suit of armor, he saw a girl leaning over the swamp, wand pointed out at it. He knew it had to be the prankster. She had the same color of hair that the girl he had seen had had in the library. Fred approached her suddenly.

"Aaahh," she shrieked, backing up from the swamp.

"Our fellow prankster," Fred said.

She had reddish brown hair that flowed down to her shoulder, circulean blue eyes, had scars running down her right arm, and was just shorter than Fred and his twin. She didn't meet his eyes, looking like a child who had been caught stealing candy from a store.

"Sabra? The quiet girl of Gryffindor Tower? It's you that has been doing this?" he said in disbelief.

"Your portable swamp is too small," Sabra said bluntly. "It will only do a little bit of damage."

Fred frowned. "How do you know that?"

"Fred Weasley. You think too small. Would have your pranks been as good if I hadn't helped?"

Fred had to admit that she was right. Still, he knew almost next to nothing about this girl, who he guessed was a fifth year.

"So Sabra..."

"Cooke."

"Following in our footsteps?"

"No. Making it better," she said with some sass. "And not getting caught."

"What?"

"That's your guys' problem. You always get caught."

Fred wasn't sure to say to this. She seemed like and acted like a serial prankster. "How long..."

"Before I got here," she said rather bluntly. "Now, back to business. Why don't we work together?"

Fred took the bait. "I'm in."

"Good. Then let me finish modifying your swamp. I'll put a time delay on it to give us time to get out of here before it blows."

Fred nodded. Sabra bent down over the swamp and resumed enchanting it while Fred kept watch. When she had finished, she stood up.

"Crap."

Sabra ran for it with Fred trailing her.

"What happened?"

"It's become unstable."

The ground shook behind them as the swamp went off and a wave of muddy water filled the corridors. Suddenly Fred stopped, turned and ran back towards the swamp.

"What are you guys doing?" Sabra asked, stunned.

Fred and George had violated the first rule of pranking (in Sabra's mind); never return to the scene of the crime. Sabra pulled out her wand.

"Locomotor Mortis," she said, catching Fred to trip and land on his face.

"Do you want to be caught?" she snapped.

"We don't care," Fred reassured her. "We have our futures planned out. You do not."

"While we appreciate your concern for our well-being we are more concerned with yours," George said as he came up behind them. That they were of the same opinion showed the strength of their sibling bond. "Now move along before you get caught."

Sabra stared at them, mouth resting on the ground. "Nothing I can do can persuade you out of this?"

"Nope," the twins said together.

Giving up, Sabra performed a Dillusionment Charm on herself and hid in a nearby unused classroom to watch the chaos unfold. Sure enough her heart clinched as the hated members of the Inquisitorial Squad arrived just minutes after she had booked it away.

–

Sabra would later watch the twins escape on their brooms, feeling a loss of the two of them being gone. Still she had work to do. Finding Peeves in the Bell Tower having just flooded the second floor, she walked straight up to the Poltergeist.

"Ready to give her hell?" Sabra asked.

"Always," the ghost said in an oily cackle.

"Let's start with the bathroom outside Umbridges's office shall we?"

Cackling madly, Peeves joined Sabra as she walked towards Umbridge's office. A new age of pranking was dawning at Hogwarts and Sabra intended to be at the front of it.