Advent '10 - December 7th
December 7th - 18 days to go
Fred and George had to pry Harry away from the hotel room where they had left their new pets. The Nifflers were leashed together in the corner of the room that the twins had turned into a small pile of dirt with some Galleons buried inside.
Harry had left all fifteen of his Puffskeins on his bed, happily making a nest out of his blankets. All except from Ash, of course, who had commandeered Harry's pillow and was watching over his brethren like a tiny overlord.
Harry had thought it adorable. Fred and George stared at the oddly acting Puffskeins weirdly, and then shrugged it off as a Harry thing.
Right now they were dressed to impress and speeding along the still busy streets on their Vespas, trying to find the address on The List.
Harry had only the barest notion of what Fred and George were planning. Truthfully, he didn't really care all that much.
As long as he didn't die. He didn't really want to die again.
It made him feel weird for hours afterwards.
Harry was just following along after Fred. Minus the times he veered up onto the pavement. That's why it took Harry almost half an hour to realise that they had passes the same shop three times already.
Gunning the thrust, he sped up to come side by side with Fred who was happily driving, his head thrown back with the wind pulling through his hair and his eyes closed.
Huh. Guess that explained why he kept going up onto the pavement.
"Fred!" Harry called out.
Fred ignored him. Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw them pass the shop again.
"Fred!" He called out again, this time punching his friend in the arm.
Fred let out a yell and veered off to the side, almost crashing into a lamppost and a group of three pensioners.
At the last second he brought the scooter under control and swung back onto the road where he turned to look at Harry.
"What was that for!"
Harry found himself lost for words. "Okay," he said eventually, "firstly, keep your eyes open. Secondly, keep them open. Thirdly, we've passed the same shop four times."
They drove past the shop again. "Make that five times."
"So?" Fred asked.
"We're driving in circles."
"Well duh," Fred looked at him strangely, "why do you think I can drive the route with my eyes closed?"
Harry opened his mouth, and then just closed it again. It wasn't worth it.
"So what are we doing then?" He asked instead.
"Wasting time." Fred replied straightaway. "We left the hotel a bit earlier than we thought. The place will be half empty at this time. Besides," Fred continued with an evil grin, "with this prank we're gonna have to skip the country almost immediately."
Harry gulped, "Is it going to involve major property damage again?"
"No."
Harry stared at him in disbelief.
"Okay, maybe a little."
Harry kept staring, expertly manoeuvring around cars and people. Fred was right, after six times around the circle you kind of got a knack for driving without looking.
"Okay, a lot."
"I don't think the government is going to be happy if we destroy Rome." He said. "It's apparently very important."
Fred shrugged. "All's fair in love and war."
"What does that even mean?" Harry asked dumbfounded.
"Well…" Fred said slowly, "we love pranks…and we're in the middle of a prank war against the were's?"
"I don't think that was supposed to be a question."
"No?"
"Besides, is it even a war if the other side doesn't even know about it?"
"Oh!" Fred exclaimed, "I know this! It's Gorilla Warfare!"
"I think you mean guerrilla warfare."
"Same thing."
"They're really not."
At Fred's look of incomprehension Harry just sighed. "Fine. We're engaging in Gorilla Warfare."
Fred nodded. "Gorilla's are vicious bastards. They'd be good in a war. Good thing none of the were's can turn into them, otherwise we'd be screwed."
Harry blinked. "Why do you know so much about Gorillas?" He asked slowly.
"Me and George snuck into the zoo one time when we were nine. The muggles had to close it for two weeks." Fred said with glee.
Harry snorted at the images that were running through his head. "Okay, but is it still war if the other side doesn't know where in the middle of it?"
"But that's the beauty of it, Harry." Fred said, slowing down and turning down a small side street. "This way we completely decimate them before they can raise a defence."
Harry shivered at the look on Fred's face. "No wonder the Light won."
Fred and Harry swung off their Vespa's as George pulled in behind them and came to a stop.
"Okay," George said as he hurried over to them, "this is the plan. We get in. Prank them. Run away."
"Sounds simple enough." Fred nodded.
Harry shrugged, "Yeah, what can go wrong?"
He startled a bit at the glares that the twins gave him.
"What?"
"You, of all people, shouldn't tempt fate." George said, passing out a couple of fist sized capsules and a small packet of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder.
Harry snorted. "We were tempting fate anyway bringing me along."
Fred shrugged, "True. And this way it's more exciting."
George cleared his throat to bring the attention back to him. "Okay, so a recap. In. Prank. Out."
Harry rolled his eyes, pocketing the darkness powder and rolled the capsule between his hands. "What's this?" he asked.
"Be careful with that." Fred said, "It's a portable swamp."
"Only there was something wrong with that batch." George added.
Fred nodded. "Yeah. For some reason the smell was ten times as strong."
"We have no idea what we did."
"And no idea how to replicate it."
"But we decided to name the batch the 'Bog's of Eternal Stench'."
"Until we found out that the name was literal."
"We still can't use lab six."
"And that was five years ago."
Harry blinked in alarm and stopped squeezing it, instead choosing to eye it warily. "So why are we using it now?"
The twins grinned.
"They're were's Harry." Fred said.
"Superior sense of smell and all."
"Hopefully this will mask us so they can't follow us."
"Hopefully?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.
The twins shrugged. "Hopefully."
Their entrance to the bar this time was a lot trickier than usual. The guards at the door seemed to be twice as big as the previous bars guards.
They also glared at Harry with anger. Harry even thought he saw one of them crack his knuckles.
"Uh guys," Harry whispered to the twins as the slunk in through the front door, "I'm getting a bad feeling about this." He glanced behind him to see that the guards had stepped in behind them. "A really bad feeling about this."
Fred scoffed as he surveyed the room. "Dear Harry,"
"What could go wrong?"
"Famous last words." Harry muttered to himself under his breath.
"It's them!" One of the were's cried out. Harry couldn't tell which one spoke though because, as one, they stood up and started to advance towards them.
"They're the ones who have been destroying the neutral places!"
"Um," Harry offered as he shifted closer to the twins, "It was an accident?"
"We're gonna skin you and hang you on our wall!"
The atmosphere in the bar took a turn for the bloodthirsty and Harry twitched nervously.
"Abort! Abort!" He hissed to the twins as they boxed him in.
"What? Just when it was getting interesting?" The grinned at him in reply.
Harry twitched again when he looked back to see the were's were getting much closer.
"Oh, God." Harry murmured and then panicked.
He reached into his pocket and palmed the capsule. In what seemed to be slow motion he pulled back his arm and let it fly.
The were's in the bar turned to watch the arc of the ball as it flew over their heads, coming down straight in the middle of the crowd.
Harry and the twins watched as realisation crossed their faces and some of them reached out to try and stop the ball from hitting the ground. Subconsciously knowing that that would be a very bad thing.
The twins, seeing this, let their own capsules fly.
Harry wasn't seeing that though. He was watching in slow motion, the dawning horror that was spreading across their faces as the ball hit the ground and promptly exploded. Followed seconds later by Fred and George's.
The swamps opened up beneath the were's feet, causing them to suddenly plummet several feet into marshy, stagnant water. The one's that had reached for the capsules ended up falling face first.
Harry's swamp grew and joined with the twins' to turn into one huge swamp that encompassed the entire room, apart from the area of floor that Harry was standing on and the front door.
But that wasn't the most pressing concern.
When the twins had said that the smell was bad, it didn't really give credence to how bad.
Harry had to clap his hand over his nose and even then his eyes were burning with the stench. He tried to breath through his mouth but all that did was allow him to taste it.
He gagged.
"Holy crap, guys." He retched, "I didn't think it was going to be this strong."
Fred and George had paled and their hands were pinching their own noses. "We'd forgotten how bad it smelt."
Through his burning tears Harry could see the were's wailing and clinging to the tables and chairs that were half floating in the rancid water.
If it was this bad for him, he had no idea what it was like for them.
"I think it's time to get out of here!" He called out to the twins.
They nodded and turned to leave when their way was blocked by two very green looking guards.
"Don't-" One of them started, before having to stop to retch off to the side.
"Don't think you'll be escaping." The other finished, swallowing what looked to be rising bile. "You'll have to deal with Savitar and he personally wants to kill you…after a while.
"If you think we want to kill you then you don't want to know what he'll do to you."
Harry shared an alarmed look with the twins.
He glanced behind them to see that some of the were's had regrouped and were wading their way closer to them.
If they had murder in their eyes before, they had hell in them now.
"I don't know about you guys," Harry said slowly, "But I do not want to come face to face with this Savitar guy."
The twins shook their heads.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Fred asked.
"Plan B." George agreed.
"On three." Harry said, eyeing the now apprehensive looking guards and trying to ignore the angry growling and splashing from behind them. "I'm really sorry about this." He said to them just before yelling out "ONE!"
On the command Harry and the twins threw their opened packets of darkness powder into the air. The result was instantaneous. The darkness exploded outwards, covering everyone and everything like black ink in water.
Yells of confusion and panic followed quickly after.
Harry heard the twins each grab a guard and swing them into the swamp. There were two huge splashes and yells that led Harry to believe that they had landed on some poor sods.
Unfortunately, Harry had turned around to follow the sounds of the guards and now he didn't know which way the door was.
Unwilling to start walking in case he fell into the swamp he stayed still. Which was nerve wracking in and of itself as he could here the were's getting closer.
"Fred?" He called out, "George? Where are you guys?"
"Harry!" Fred's voice came over to him from his right, "we're over here by the door."
Harry held out his hands and fumbled his way to where he thought Fred's voice was coming from.
"Fred?" He called out again as the sound of growls seemed to surround him.
He did not want to be left alone in a room full of very angry people that could turn into animals that would have no problem ripping him apart, thank you very much.
All of a sudden his hands came into contact with two fleshy globes. With wide unseeing eyes Harry squeezed.
"You're not Fred."
A hand clamped on his wrist with an iron grip.
"There you are you little shit!" A female voice snarled.
"Guys!" Harry shouted. "Help!"
"Oh for Merlin's sake!" he heard George yell, "Accio Harry!"
There was a jolt and Harry felt his feet lifting from the ground as he was launched through the air. The hand on his wrist being wrenched away.
Harry let out a cry as he slammed into George, knocking him straight through the open doorway and into blessed light.
Harry scrambled up quickly and shot a look back at the door which seemingly opened into nothing but snarls and growls.
It reminded him uncomfortably of what little he knew of doorways into Hell.
Fred flicked his wand and the door shut and locked itself, the sound muted a little.
"Getaway?" Harry asked.
"Getaway." Fred and George agreed, just as the were's started to pound on the door.
The three of them sprinted down the street to where they had parked the Vespa's and sprang onto them. Behind him Harry could hear the door of the bar splinter and crack open.
"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" he yelled, gunning the scooter and fishtailing it out into the roads.
They sped along the streets, not paying any attention to speed limits or if they were actually driving on pavement and not road.
After five minutes, Harry's heart started to calm its frantic beating and he let out a laugh. He was soon joined by Fred and George.
"Did you see their faces!" Harry crowed.
"Faces!" Fred disagreed, "Did you smell that!"
"They're not going to be getting that out any time soon!" George laughed.
"I'm telling you, I'm glad we didn't get wet-" Harry cut himself off with yell as the pavement under his wheels suddenly disappeared and he found himself, for a brief moment, flying.
Then gravity took hold and his scooter plunged into the river.
Harry sank with the bike as the icy water shocked all the breath from his body. Then he came to his senses and let go of the handles and swam to the surface.
Treading water and spluttering, his head was soon joined by that of the twins.
"Next time." Harry gritted out through chattering teeth, "We stick to the roads."
Fred and George nodded and as one they swam to the other side of the river and clambered out.
"Apparate?" Harry asked.
"Apparate." The twins agreed.
With three loud cracks they appeared back into the lobby of the hotel. Ignoring the looks they received they sprinted up the stairs to keep warm.
"I don't know if they can follow us." Fred panted as they ran. "Their sense of smell should be shot right about now."
"But we've been here for a day." George continued, "If they call in someone who wasn't in the bar, but was in one of the others we've been to, then they may be able to track us here."
"Who knows how much time we have?"
"You think we should leave tonight?" Harry asked.
"Probably best."
Harry nodded and slammed open the door.
"Puffskeins! To me!" He called out as Fred and George rushed past him and started to pack and shrink their belongings.
The puffskeins didn't move from the bed.
Harry rolled his eyes. "This is going to take too much time." He unsheathed his wand and quickly cast a couple of layers of sticking charms to himself.
"Accio Puffskeins!"
Fifteen balls of fluff rocketed across the room and stuck to Harry's wet body where they immediately started purring.
In a moment of amusement Harry noticed that Ash was stuck to his forehead.
Fred and George choked on the laughter.
"Here," Fred said, throwing the Nifflers at Harry's back where they stuck tight, waving their little feet about, "seeing as you've already covered yourself."
Harry stared at them blankly but reached for the belt when it was held out.
"Where's our next stop anyway?" He asked.
"Denmark."
There was a jolt as the portkey activated and they were hooked forward. Harry heard his puffskeins chirrup in delight at the sensation, sticking out their tongues and enjoying the ride.
When they landed in the middle of the Danish ministry, Fred and George broke down at the sight he made.
Harry ignored all of them, including the workers, and strode through the lobby with dignity.
The puffskeins still had the tongues waving in the air.
"Come on!" He called back to Fred and George who tried and failed to stop laughing but caught up with him anyway. "I want to put some wards up on the room before I fall asleep. I don't know about you but I don't think I ever want to meet that Savitar guy."