Ex. 2 (A scene where a JKR character gets their Hogwart’s Letter)
Title: “Thank Heaven For Hogwart’s”
Author: Lorry
Summary: Fred and George get their letters
Characters: Fred, George, Molly, and Percy Weasley.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. They all belong to JK Rowling,
Warner Bros. etc. I am only here for entertainment purposes. No profit will
be made by me.
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Thank Heaven For Hogwart’s
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“Mum! Mum!” Percy Weasley shouted at the top of his lungs as he skidded, draped in nothing but a bath towel, into the family sitting room. Molly’s enchanted feather duster clattered to the floor as Fred and George, Percy’s younger twin brothers, ran past their sibling and hid behind her, each grabbing a fistful of her worn purple robe.
“Mum! Don’t believe him, Mum!” shouted one.
“Whatever he says we swear we didn’t do it!” panicked the other.
“Of course they did it!” Percy screamed, loosing control. “Who else in this family would put exploding bubbles in our soap bar?”
Molly peered more closely at her son, noticing his singed face and the blackened edges along his hairline. Streaks of soot ran down his cheeks in little inky rivulets. She glanced over her shoulder at the twins, who still cowered behind her, Fred pretending a coughing fit to cover up his giggles, and George practicing his innocent look.
“Haven’t I told you boys about things like this?” she began impatiently. She might have even worked up a bit of anger, except for the episode of the floating kitchen appliances, and the gnomes who had all claimed to have been “invited” over for tea and crumpets that very afternoon. Truth be told, the woman was too worn out for any more yelling.
“Go finish your shower, Percy,” she spoke to her son. “And see that ya don’t forget the soot behind your ears.”
Percy shook his head in disgust, and, still shaking from anger (or the fact that he was standing nearly naked in the family room, he wasn’t sure which) he headed back up the narrow stairs.
“I will have a talk with these two while you’re gone.” she assured firmly. Without a glance to see if Percy obeyed, Molly turned on her prankster twins.
“Sit,” she commanded, pointing to a lumpy leather couch. “And don’t talk!” she cautioned, as the two boys continued to feign innocence.
“Mum...” Fred ventured quietly.
“Don’t!” Molly returned, sighing deeply. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with the two of you. Always picking on poor dear Percy, who never bothers a soul.”
“He bothers us,” George defended.
“He’s unnatural,” Fred finished.
“Unnatural, is he?” Molly questioned. “And just why would you be callin’ him such a thing? Is obedience unnatural? Is a desire for order and peace unnatural?” The boys cowered just a little as their mum’s voice rose an octave.
“Is bein’ dependable and studious and trustworthy unnatural? Is it unnatural for me to expect those things from the two of you?”
“We’re sorry, Mum,” Fred offered, doing his best to look angelic.
“We’ll go apologize to Percy. We’ll even clean his room.” George added.
Molly’s eyes narrowed at the offer. “You’ll do no such thing, young man. You will finish getting rid of the gnomes you invited over for tea. And you...” she pointed a shaky finger at Fred. "If I try to start dinner in my best cauldron and it floats away from me one more time...”
Fred threw a grin toward his brother, who was frowning at the thought of an impending de-gnoming.
“You did that?” George hissed.
Fred nodded proudly.
“Wizard!”
The two of them were just thinking that they might have managed to get off easy, when Molly broke in on their remarks.
“And just you wait until your father gets home.”
“Mum...” the twins whined in unison, but secretly they shared a knowing wink. The boys knew that Arthur wouldn’t return from his out-of-town trip for the Ministry until Saturday, the day of their eleventh birthday celebration. And they knew their dad well enough to know that he wasn’t going to be handing out punishments on such a momentous occasion. Molly had, in fact, just sealed her doom, and the doom of the rest of Clan Weasley, as far as the twins were concerned.
“I’ll go let down the cauldron, Mum,” Fred mumbled, head hung low in mock repentance.
“I’ll go kick the gnomes out of the garden.” George added, heading for the back door.
Molly sat down on the couch for a minute, closing her eyes against the gnawing sense of doubt she felt as her sons disappeared. “That was far too easy,” she breathed to herself. Her hunch proved right as not three minutes later, a scream was heard in the direction of the Weasley bathroom.
“I’m... going... to... kill... you!!!” came faintly from somewhere up the stairs.
“You’ll never catch us in a towel!” Came the hysterical reply.
Molly shuddered at the sound of unnumbered feet clambering down the staircase. She opened her eyes, waiting for inevitable crash as someone, probably Percy, lost his footing.
It happened right on cue.
Then the sound of running feet and laughing boys continued out the back door, with one last slam to punctuate the whole affair.
This time Percy reappeared in the family room, a full month’s growth of flaming red beard accentuating his once smooth chin.
“They.....” Percy sputtered. “Put.... Hair... grower... in.... my... shave cream.” he finally managed through a rage that ran as red as his brand new beard.
“Hair.... grower! Mother!”
“Oh my poor dear Percy,” Molly whispered, jumping to her feet. Irrationally she tried to wipe away her son’s new growth with the towel he held in his hands. It wasn’t coming off.
“Well at least you managed to get your pants on before...” Molly didn’t know if she should laugh or burst into tears.
“We should never have allowed them into that joke shop last week." Percy complained, scratching his jaw line.
"I have to go shopping for this family sometime,” Molly countered, but her train of thought suddenly broke, and she gazed Percy full in the eye.
“Just when did you start shaving?”
“Mum!” Percy cried accusingly. “That’s not the issue here. Those two sons of yours... They are trying to single handedly drive me crazy. And I don‘t doubt that they want you to come along with me, as well.”
Molly gripped the towel, twisting it in her hands as she tried on different emotions. Fury usually left her feeling impotent, and mere anger never got her anywhere with the twins. There had to be a way to stop their madcap antics before they got out of hand.
“Too late for that,” she muttered, allowing the towel to drop to the floor.
“George!” She shouted, pushing her way past Percy and through the house to her back door.
“Fred!”
“I want you both here.... NOW!”
She looked up into the bright autumn sky. The blue was unbroken only by a growing black speck in the distance. She would have liked to have examined that speck, which was now more the size of a football, but at that very moment her sons emerged from around the corner.
“You two are in...”
She watched in amazement as the speck football separated and became two barn owls flying in unison.
“So much...”
The owls circled her boys for a moment before realization hit their mother.
“Hogwarts!” she cried out in a mixture of joy and disbelief that bordered on rapture.
“You’re in... Oh thank heavens! Hogwart’s”
“We’re in... Hogwart’s?” the twins asked, suddenly befuddled. They looked up just as the owls slam dunked their messages onto the boys’ red heads.
“Ow!” Fred mumbled, catching his letter in one had while he rubbed his crown with the other.
“Hey!” George cried at the same time, suddenly indignant.
“What’s going on here?” he asked, sending his mother an accusing glance. But his mother was otherwise occupied, dancing an Irish jig with their older brother, who had no intention of joining in her gyrations.
“Mum!” Fred shouted. “Stop acting like a kid and tell us what all this is about.”
“You got your letters,” Molly sang. “Your Hogwart letters. Open them. Go on. They don’t bite. I promise.”
Suddenly the Weasley garden sounded as though a battle, including, but not limited to an entire tribe of Indian warriors was unfolding amidst it’s untended hedges.
Molly Weasley’s was the loudest war whoop of all.
The End...... ? (We can only wonder)