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SIYE Time:18:52 on 28th March 2024
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The Art of Pranking
By gryffins_door

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Category: Alternate Universe, Prank Wars Challenge (2022-2)
Characters:Harry/Ginny
Genres: Action/Adventure, Humor
Warnings: Mild Language
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 8
Summary: ***Winner of Best Overall, Most Unexpected, and joint winner of the People's Choice Award for the Prank Wars Challenge (2022)***Little Harry, new Unspeakable-in-Training, assumes that attending a birthday party for an 11-year-old girl should be a piece of cake. He finds out otherwise.

Sequel to The Art of Being Harry. CoS replacement.
Hitcount: Story Total: 2421; Chapter Total: 605
Awards: View Trophy Room




Author's Notes:
This chapter completes the challenge portion, however, fear not, the story will continue!




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2. Twins

o

Ginny's birthday party proceeded according to what Harry imagined such a normal event would be like. He enjoyed the lunch, the cake, the games were fun - especially when Harry found he could sneak a tickling hex on the twins. Of course, they tried to retaliate and had a two-to-one advantage. Mrs. Weasley was not near as amused as everyone else when the three of them were laughing so uncontrollably that the bowl of pumpkin juice tipped over onto them. Somehow Harry did not get blamed for any of the trouble and had a horrible thought of what would have happened to him had he done that at his relative's house. Fortunately, those days were far behind him.

He had to go upstairs to the loo to attempt cleaning himself. He was almost dry again when he was nearly scared out of his skin by a small creature with ridiculously large floppy ears and bulbous green eyes that stepped out of the shower.

"Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts," it said in a pitiful sounding voice.

"Who are you?" Harry recognized it as a house-elf, but he had no idea the Weasleys owned one.

"Dobby has come to tell brave Harry Potter not to go back to Hogwarts. A great danger awaits him there!"

"Did Fred or George put you up to this? If that's so, I can give you anything you want to turn the tables on them."

"No! No one knows Dobby is here! Dobby's master would be very angry with Dobby if he knew!"

Dobby, who was apparently not owned by the Weasleys, was very insistent and would tell Harry nothing different regardless how he framed the questions and eventually left to attend his master when Harry could not convince him that he could handle whatever was coming.

This day keeps getting weirder, he thought.

o o o

"So you got yourself pulled into a prank war, a strange house elf is warning you about dangers at school, but the thing you really want to know is if wrackspurts are real?" Blinken said, trying to understand.

Harry nodded. "I didn't ask for the prank war, but I figured it could be a fun way to work some different magic. I didn't get enough from the house elf to do anything about it, especially since he kept banging his head with the toilet seat -"

"Self-punishment," said Winken ominously.

"Probably belongs to a dark family," mused Nod to several nods.

"But," Harry continued, "I thought you guys might know something about these wrackspurt things. I'd never heard of them."

"We have some debate about that, actually," said Nod. "However, must of us agree that the Lovegoods can sense magical auras in a way that most cannot. If that is true, it is likely that changes in an individual's aura - for instance, their state of confusion - might manifest itself as something that appears creature-like to them. We've asked several times for an interview but he keeps turning us down. From what you've told us, the daughter may have inherited her father's ability."

"Okay," said Harry, "that makes a lot of sense. What about the mother?"

"We don't know if she had the gift or not," said Blinken. "Unfortunately, she died a couple years ago in a tragic accident. It was a sad example of why you don't attempt spell creation in an uncontrolled environment without proper safeguards."

"Oh," Harry said, and he sat quietly contemplating how unfortunate Luna was to have known and lost her mum at such a young age. Harry at least never really knew his parents to realize what he could have had.

"On that note," added Harry, "the Weasley twins gave me some kind of home-made candies before I left and I wondered if you guys could help me analyze them."

"Of course," said Blinken. "Let's see what you've got."

Harry spread out the contents of a little bag onto the table. They checked the little plainly-wrapped goodies for any kind of external magic and found none. Harry carefully unwrapped one and began poking it with his wand.

"Most of the ingredients seem mundane - sugar, some kind of syrup, milk or maybe cream, salt - but there's a few things here - lacewing flies, leeches, crushed eggshell of some kind - suggests some kind of temporary transfiguration, probably human to reptile or bird. I don't see anything lethal."

"Very good," said Winken. "Yet there's really only one way to be sure what they do."

"Yep," said Harry. "Try it out."

He tossed the candy into his mouth and swallowed. A moment later there was a puff of smoke and a large canary had replaced him. It chirped and trilled and tried to flap its wings, but it was rather large to do any actual flying. It jumped around for a few minutes trying out different poses and activities until another puff of smoke and he returned to his former state of small human boy.

"That was so cool," he said, jumping with excitement. "We've got to have an awesome comeback that beats it."

"You can add that to your To-Do list," said Winken with a wink.

"Along with these," said Blinken, tossing a small pile of books in front of him. "Reading material from your new DADA teacher."

Harry blinked at the grinning face of Gilderoy Lockhart that adorned all the covers. "Tell me this is another prank," he pleaded. "I've already read the one on werewolves and he seems more than a bit dodgy."

"According to Dumbledore, he's the only applicant this year," said Winken. "The rumors of what happened to Quirrel apparently scared everyone away."

“But Quirrel’s perfectly fine,” said Harry, remembering that he had trapped the Voldemort-possessed teacher in a magical portrait that was currently hanging in the hut of Hagrid the Hogwarts gamekeeper. “What sort of rumors?”

"There's one that says you turned him to dust, another that the centaurs used him in a ritual to bring back more unicorns, that sort of thing."

"We'd like to toss him through the Veil," said Blinken, "but there's unanswered questions about why his possessor is still around. We decided it's best to leave him where he is for now. If we brought that portrait here, he might escape to a different one."

"That means you're stuck with Lockhart," said Nod. "You should know that we've had suspicions about him for years. He's another that won't agree to an interview so we need you to observe him closely and report on anything you might find."

Harry couldn't help thinking his To-Do list was getting alarmingly long.

o o o

"What are you doing in the twins' room?" said Ron accusingly.

"Shhh! It's a prank potion that Harry sent," said Ginny, reaching as high as she could. "I have to spread it around the inside of the door frame for it to work right. Can you get the top for me?"

"Okay, but I had nothing to do with this, got it?"

"Fine, but I think you'll like the result."

The result was that when either Fred or George tried to enter their room, they were instantly transported to wherever they were one minute earlier. They were dumbfounded for hours, but eventually they figured out that entering the room backwards would let them pass without incident.

o o o

"Ginny said the throwback potion was a big hit," Harry said, reading from her letter. "They started experimenting how far they could travel in the minute before they tried to run through the door. It was great fun until Ginny nearly hexed them again when George appeared in the loo when she had an emergency nature call. She had rushed in just after he had left."

They laughed as they discussed the prank, but Nod eventually became serious.

"Harry," he said, "tomorrow you return to school. We certainly have enjoyed working with you this summer. You are always welcome here and we want you to stay in touch. A word of caution - this house elf that visited you at the Weasleys' may have seemed to be round the twist, but there is a possibility that his warning is real. Stay sharp, question everything, and don't put yourself in harm's way unnecessarily."

o o o

The Ministry floo system had a direct connection to platform nine and three-quarters so that Harry could skip the Muggle side of King's Cross station. He climbed aboard the train with his charmed trunk that was much lighter than it looked and wandered until he found the compartment containing Lee Jordan, who was a roommate of the Weasley twins.

"Fred and George shown up yet?"

"No," Lee said, "I wouldn't expect them until right before departure time."

"Okay," Harry said. "Look, the twins challenged their little sister Ginny - new first year - to a prank war -"

"That's hardly fair, is it?"

"And she named me as second."

Lee whistled. "All right, thanks for the warning," he said. "I'll try to stay out of the way."

"Just remember it's not personal, okay?" Harry said with a grin.

o o o

Just as Lee predicted, the Weasley clan arrived just before eleven o'clock, barely making it onto the train. Fred and George walked in and greeted them boisterously. Ron waved but wisely moved on. Ginny stepped in to say hello. The older brother Percy, who was a prefect, stopped by last.

"I do not want to hear about any trouble out of this prank war, understand?" he said to them with the threat of punishment evident in his voice.

"Of course not," Harry said with a straight face. After Percy had passed, Harry muttered, "Not that you will hear about anyway."

They laughed and talked about their summer as the train began its long journey to Scotland. Finally Ginny said she was going to find some first years to sit with. Harry stood up and made his excuses as well.

As they stepped out into the corridor, Harry discretely handed her a fist size sphere of what appeared to be water without a container.

"Just toss it in and close the door," Harry whispered. "I'll strengthen the windows and walls."

Ginny grinned and turned back to Fred, George and Lee. "By the way, George, this is payback for you."

She tossed in the ball which splashed onto the floor in a seemingly harmless puddle. She slid the door closed as Harry worked his enchantments on the compartment enclosure.

The twins faces were laughing until they noticed the puddle on the floor was several inches deep, and it kept rising foot by foot. By the time they started to panic it was chest high and they were beginning to feel stinging sensations in their necks and appendages.

Harry and Ginny were laughing all the way to their next destination.

o o o

They found Luna Lovegood sitting in a compartment by herself and decided to join her.

"Did you read any of the Lockhart books yet?" Harry said, trying to make conversation.

"I had already read half of them," replied Ginny. "Mum's a big fan so we have all of them. Since they're required school books, we had to buy two more sets. The twins are sharing one, Ron and I will be sharing the other, and Percy is borrowing Mum's set."

"The downside of having lots of siblings in school at the same time, right?"

"It's not so bad," Ginny said. "My brothers are a decent lot - most of the time."

"What about you, Luna?" said Harry.

She lifted her head from the Quibbler she was reading. "When I read them, Daddy's words came to mind."

"Yeah? What'd he say?"

"'The truth in the story is not from the storyteller.'"

As Harry considered the cryptic words, there was a knock on the door.

"Hi, I'm Colin Creevey," said a young boy as he looked in their compartment. "I don't know if you've heard, but there's a bunch of really large fish swimming around in this aquarium in the next carriage. It's totally awesome!"

"We've heard," Harry and Ginny chorused, grinning.

"So there's a school on its way to school?" Luna quipped.

o o o

The sorting (or firsting, as Harry had learned to call it years ago) was the usual cheery affair with the new young students running off the stool and running to the table of students clapping loudest for their newest member. Luna joined Ravenclaw and Ginny was the last new Gryffindoor. Her brothers all formed a group hug around her as she arrived.

The headmaster made his usual opening remarks and food appeared. Harry was enraptured - even though he had been at Hogwarts for five years and had been eating at this table for the last year, it was technically his very first opening feast. He was sitting across from the youngest Weasley and swallowed the delicious bite of roast chicken he was working on.

"So, Ginny -" he began, but stopped as a huge rasping sound emanated from his backside.

Those around him stared at him for a moment before the giggling began.

To her credit, Ginny was trying to maintain a straight face. "Yes, Harry?"

"I was just going to ask how you were enjoying Hogwarts so far?"

"Oh, it's great," she said. "Even after all the stories, it seems so… magical, you know?"

A young girl to her left turned. "My name's Monica. Were those your brothers with the red hair?"

"Yes," Ginny smiled. "A crazy lot, but they're mine. I'm Gin -" and she couldn't even finish before a similar rasping sound drowned her out.

While the others around them were no longer trying hide their mirth, Ginny frowned. She looked back at Monica. "Say my name," she demanded.

Confused, she complied. "Your name is Gi(PHHHBBBT)!" she said, shocked at the result.

Ginny faced Harry with a fire in her eyes.

"The twins," they concluded together.

Harry held up his wand. "May I?"

Ginny nodded, and Harry waved his wand over her.

"It's a flatulence curse with a vocal trigger," he said, then grinned. "I'm guessing it's your name. They probably put it on you during that group hug. Do you want me to cancel it?"

"Not yet," Ginny said with a malicious grin of her own. "I've got an idea for payback."

o o o

The fifth year prefects led the new first year Gryffindors into the common room and explained the rules about expectations, where the dorms were located, etc. while the other students settled into the squashy chairs for a session of catching up on each other.

"That's all we have for now. Since curfew is earlier for first years, you may want to head on up and prepare for bed. We're here if you have questions about anything."

"Thank you for showing us around," said Ginny. "Do you mind if I do a little something? It'll just take a minute."

The prefects looked at other and shrugged. "As long as no one objects, knock yourself out."

Harry came over and helped Ginny climb atop a table in the center of the common room. He then cast the Amplifying charm Sonorus on her.

"May I have your attention please?" she stated, at first surprised at how her voice reverberated around the room. "My name is Gin(PHHHBBT)ny Weasley, younger sister to all the Weasley boys that you've gotten to know over the years."

Laughs and catcalls were heard from the others, but Ginny soldiered on.

"My dear brothers Fred and George have apparently cursed my name, so if you say Gin(PHHHBBT)ny you get that special effect at the same time."

The noise level rose several notches as many experimented saying her name and found it to be true. Some thought it so funny they kept repeating it betweens squeals and peals of laughter.

"So if you're like me and you feel the twins have been particularly annoying, move over and form a circle around them."

Most of the house now got into the spirit of the event and wanted to participate in what should be a rather momentous occasion. They got as close as they could to the couch where Fred and George were chortling, amazed that their sister, youngest Gryffindor of them all, had everyone playing her tune.

"You all know what to do - aim your arses! On the count of three -"

She counted them off and as one they all yelled her name and simultaneously blasted their noxious gasses at the twins, causing them to turn a pale shade of green while the red fabric paled to brown. The torches shot up brightly and the fires roared.

Everyone scattered to the far corners of the room, laughing the whole way, while upper year students cast bubblehead and air freshening charms.

Harry canceled both the Sonorus and the Flatulence spells on Ginny and helped her down to the floor.

"At least they know your name now," he said, and they smiled conspiratorially.

"Thanks, Harry, you're the best."

Ginny gave him a tight squeeze around his middle and he froze.

Winken had given him a few hugs over the summer but something was different this time. He had no idea what it was, but maybe the Unspeakables could help.

o o o

The following week saw them all attending new classes. Ginny's year was being introduced to magic for the first time while Harry's classes were all focused on the importance of passing the OWLs at the end of the year.

Of course, Harry had heard the spiel many times before. McGonagall got especially stern, Snape was even more vitriolic - equal parts threatening and dismissive, and even the energetic and personable Flitwick had a more somber speech especially for them.

As a new teacher, Lockhart was the only unknown quantity, and Harry was interested in what he had to say about Defense Against the Dark Arts since he was supposed to be an expert on the subject. When the class actually happened, they were given a quiz on their knowledge of the professor and his books. It was a useless exercise, but Harry decided to give him a chance. He was new at teaching, after all, added to the fact that the Unspeakables had told him to study the man.

The Weasley Prank War continued to be a source of amusement as well. It was not unusual for them to be sporting brightly colored skin or the odd appendage here and there. Harry was better at dispelling the pranks due to his greater knowledge, but the twins won points on creativity.

However, Ginny was no slouch in that department either. One of her best ideas was "thought balloons" that floated over the twins' heads one day, displaying exactly what they were thinking to everyone around them. Of course, Fred and George had the mental fortitude to actually control what was going through their own heads, so they began broadcasting prank messages that disparaged everyone from annoying Slytherins to the Minister of Magic. They made flattering commentary in the presence of the Gryffindor chaser girls and even Professor McGonagall couldn't punish them for rude comments in class because they didn't actually say them out loud. It was fine entertainment as long as one did not become a target of their satire.

It was a mid-September Sunday evening in the Great Hall with everyone seated for dinner when the biggest prank yet began to unfold. Everyone in the room began to take on visual characteristics of their house mascot - the Slytherins turned scaly, the Ravenclaws feathery, the Hufflepuffs took on stripy fur and the Gryffindors sprouted whiskers from their tawny fur.

The noise level rose as they all turned to their neighbors and tried to voice their amazement, only to discover the second part of the prank - they had to introduce themselves with their new name, which was alliterative with their new House surname.

Harry turned to Ginny. "Hi, I'm Garry Gryffindor and your whiskers look marvelous."

"I'm Guinivere Gryffindor," she giggled, "and your mane is quite spiffing, Mr. Gryffindor."

Ron became Gron, Hermione became Germaine, and so on. At the other tables, Cedric Diggory was now Headrick Hufflepuff, Luna Lovegood was Runa Ravenclaw, and Draco Malfoy was Slackoff Slytherin. Some were laughing themselves silly with their new looks and identification, others were considerably less pleased.

The headmaster enjoyed the humor as much as anyone as Gladbus Gryffindor, but Professor McGonagall decided that a line had been crossed, and she became likewise very cross.

She stood at the high table with Sonorus charm in place, and her voice stilled the entire hall.

"I'm Ginerva Gryffindor, and Fred and George Weasley, for this ridiculous display that will be fifty points each from Gryffindor, and detention with Mr. Filch for the rest of the month!"

Slowly it dawned on all the students that the professor had seen what they had all missed - the Weasley twins were sitting dumbfounded as the only unchanged people in the entire hall.

They gawked at each other and suddenly realized the true nature of the prank.

They roared their mirth to ceiling of the Great Hall.

No one noticed Harry and Ginny giving each other their conspiratorial grins once again.

o o o

The next day Harry suffered through yet another potions class being belittled by Professor Snape, and was now slumped in the back of the Defense classroom avoiding the most self-absorbed human that Harry had ever had the displeasure to meet, and had to refer to this clown Lockhart as a professor as well. Harry needed to practice his magic to do well on his OWLs and Lockhart only seemed interested in re-enacting improbable scenes from his adventure books.

What was it Luna mentioned her father had said?

The truth in the story is not from the storyteller.

What did that mean, exactly? The Unspeakables said Mr. Lovegood made brilliant commentary if you understood the code. Was there a hidden code here?

At face value, the statement implied that there was some truth in the story, but it didn't come from Lockhart. If that was true, who or what was the source?

Slowly, he came to a possible conclusion, and then he made a decision.

At dinner in the Great Hall that evening, he gathered Ginny and her twin brothers together.

"Guys," he said in a low voice, "this prank war has been fun, but we have a new target."

o

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