(Eng) Weasleys, Pranks and other Curses

18

Bill had actually sent the others away at one point and my heart had dropped.

"That bad?" I asked breathlessly.

"Everything is still salvageable," he admonished me sternly. "But you have to do your part for that."

"I didn't do anything!" I instinctively defended myself. I really hadn't done anything to warrant this deterioration, after all.

"You have to do even less." Exhausted, he tossed the old bandages into the bucket, which I was glad I hadn't needed after all. "Three days of complete bed rest. I'll mix you a potion to take every two or three hours. After that, we'll see."

My mouth remained open. I had suspected something was going wrong when Bill had started asking me if I felt this or that and half the time I had had no idea what he was talking about. But that bad? "Should I go to the hospital instead?"

Suddenly Bill looked incredibly old and tired. ""You can't. It's demanding enough to keep up the protection spells here."

Concerned, my gaze sank to my feet in the thick socks Hermione had forced on me. Of course. The curse spirit was still searching for me. He had never been this close to his goal before. "I'm sorry."

Bill patted my thigh. "We'll get through the three days together," he said.

"We can help." Of course the twins had been listening. "You know we're right." I had never seen either of them so serious.

Bill crossed his arms. I'd seen him serious more often when he was absorbed in his work. What surprised me was the scrutinizing look. Was he really considering the offer? The seconds passed in endless, stifling silence.
"All right."

The twins exhaled in relief while I looked indignant.
"Really?" I couldn't believe it.

"After you told me about the potion, I took a look at their latest joke items. When those two want to, they have a lot of talent." I wanted to complain further, but Bill brooked no argument. "You don't move from the spot as agreed and you," he grabbed one twin by the arm each, "help me clean out my room. I'm moving in with you."

"Yes!" the twins were still doing as they walked. "Ron gets Percy!"

Less than half an hour later, everyone in the burrow was privy to the changed situation. Bill and the twins were brewing an even more horrible medicine in the kitchen from the ingredients Misses Weasley had procured, and I was sulking on the sofa.

"How am I supposed to do anything less?", I complained to Ginny, who had my feet on her lap and was teasing Crookshanks with a cat toy.

"You have to look on the bright side. You have an excuse to get waited on from top to bottom! When do you ever get an opportunity like that?"

Every day, would have been the honest answer. But I couldn't say that. There were only three of us in my family and we had five house elves. For an apartment we never used. When I did go there, the house elves had read my every wish from my eyes. I had more privileges than most of the students at Hogwarts combined. "I don't know," I grumbled instead.

"You can get Ron to teach you wizard chess," Hermione suggested. "I can help you catch up on what you're still missing in class."

"And I can -" Ginny hesitated.

"Thank you, really. But I'm going to be obnoxious for the next three days, I'm afraid."

"So it's business as usual?" Fred held a bubbling bottle with tongs in front of him.

"So charming. That all the girls at Hogwarts don't fall at your feet, I don't understand at all." And the bad mood was already starting.

"They do!" grinned Fred broadly, and when the potion finally stopped bubbling, he took it out of the tongs. "My lady," he half bowed as he handed me the bottle. "Bon appetit."

Hesitantly, I glanced at Bill and when he nodded, I closed my eyes and drank the vile smelling concoction. "This is even worse than I expected," I cooed as I struggled to keep my nausea at bay.

"No worse than losing your arm," Bill assured me, "Now off to bed. I'll take care of the protection spells while you do." With a brisk step, he stepped out into the garden. Apparently the twins had indeed been a help to him if he could recover so quickly.

"Girls," Misses Weasley called from the kitchen. "Will you help me with dinner, please?"
The two girls scrunched up their faces, but promised to come "visit" me soon.

Meanwhile, I was still shaking from the potion.
"So, is it working yet?" asked Fred, as George got down on one knee beside me.
"Looks like it is. Let's go, Renard."

I pushed myself up from the sofa, but something was different than usual. I just managed to take a step before I understood why George was kneeling in front of me. My legs just failed me and the twin caught me.

"What is this?!" My whole body began to tingle.

"Bill said it was the only way we could keep you from breaking your promise. It really wasn't our idea this time."

"Absolute innocence," Fred confirmed, walking up the stairs ahead of us and pushing everything out of the way that we might bump into.

"I'm going to wring Bill's neck," I growled defenselessly in George's arms.

"He can live with that if you end up using both hands to do it."

The room had clearly once been Bill's. I knew some of the books piled on the crooked desk. Curses. Fred set an alarm clock on the nightstand and before George had even dropped me off, he fled the room laughing again.

"You take the first shift!"
"Fred!"

But there was nothing more to be done. Sighing, the remaining twin let me slide into bed and pulled the blanket out from under me. "This really wasn't our idea," he affirmed again.

"I know." As much as I hated to admit it. Bill had been quite right. Lying still for three days was going to be hell.

George closed the door Fred had left open when he escaped, and the sudden quiet amazed me. " Percy made that." George stood around the room uncertainly. "After all, this was his room most of the time Bill was away. Wanted to study and work in peace." He screwed up his face, and I'm sure I would have laughed if I hadn't still been caught off guard and angry. "Sorry the potion was so disgusting. We really tried to do something about the taste." He sat down at the foot of the bed, rubbing his hands together, unsure of what to fill the next few hours with.
His comment about the potion had reminded me again of the conversation I had had just a few hours earlier.

George had known that the potion was no longer working. He had allowed me to hold his hand like a silly schoolgirl. Why did I have to think of this now? I felt cheated enough as it was, but apparently a real masochist was slumbering somewhere between the convolutions of my brain.

Before I could say anything about it, George was up again and trudging over to the desk. "So you and Bill. You know each other from before."

"Hmm," I grumbled, deliberately ambiguous.

"You must have been pretty tight, the way you greeted him."
Even though he was pretending to be quite interested in one of the books, I could see him giving me furtive glances out of the corner of his eye.

Shut up. Shut up. Don't say it! , I implored myself. You're angry! But when was the last time I had listened to my mind? Not since I had arrived at Hogwarts. "Yes very much. I missed him terribly."

George slammed the book shut a little too hard and he knew it. "How wonderful that you were able to see each other again. Even though the circumstances are so tragic."

I bit my lip, but felt that even my facial muscles had clearly lost strength. Why hadn't I kept my mouth shut? George had saved my life. Everything else really didn't matter, did it?

"It's all right," George ended the subject. "I was just curious."

The next few hours dragged on in miserable silence until Bill, of all people, came to relieve his brother.