Chapter Two: Pranking Shenanigans
The next morning, Harish woke up to find that the twins were already awake and sitting on their beds. When they spotted he was no longer asleep, they both held out a package.
"Since yesterday was so busy—"
"We thought we'd celebrate—"
"Your birthday today."
Harish nodded thankfully and took the packages. One of them felt like it contained a book and the other had a box of some sort. Harish could tell that both presents were from both Fred and George. He opened the book first, ripping the wrappings off of it, and saw that it was titled, Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches.
"Saw that at Flourish and Blotts the other day," Fred said.
"We, of course, did not read it before giving it to you," George added, sounding slightly sarcastic as he shot Fred a look, who grinned sheepishly.
"That's all right," Harish said, setting the book aside and opening the other package. Inside was a regular kit of prank supplies from Zonko's.
"And we thought you could take those apart and see what ingredients they have."
Harish nodded and once again set his gift off to the side.
"C'mon, then, if you're done," George said as they stood up.
"Breakfast."
They chose to simply walk to the kitchen this time, in order to avoid the wrath of Mrs. Weasley. When Harish entered the kitchen, he knew that by we, the twins had meant the entire Weasley family; there was a sizable stack of presents sitting on the table.
"Arthur told me to wish you a happy seventeenth, Harish," Mrs. Weasley said as the three boys sat down. "I know your birthday was yesterday, but I knew we would be able to celebrate it better today. That's our present on top."
Harish took the square parcel she had indicated, and unwrapped it. Inside was a watch. It was gold, with stars circling around the face instead of hands.
"It's traditional to give a wizard a watch when he comes of age," Mrs. Weasley said, looking at him from beside the cooker. "I noticed you didn't have one on when you came here."
"Yeah, well, my father's not very traditional," Harish replied simply.
"Here Harish!" Hermione exclaimed, hurrying over to the table and adding another gift to the pile. "It's not much, but I hope you like it. What did you two get him?" she added to the twins.
"Joke stuff," they both said, watching Harish put on his watch,
Then, Harish opened the parcel from Hermione; it contained a Sneakoscope. The other packages included an enchanted razor from Bill that had a note telling him to be very specific with his orders to the razor, a box of chocolates from Sirius (mailed from his father that morning), a book on cooking from Ginny (who had noticed the twins stealing Mrs. Weasley's cookbook), and a remembrall from Neville.
When Harish saw the gift from Neville, he was slightly surprised but pleased. He was also not surprised at all that he had not received anything from Ron, Percy, or Charlie (who was still in Romania).
When they returned to the twins' bedroom, the three young men were happy to see that the Blood Blisterpods were finished. Each teen took a blood red sweet and inspected it. Harish looked at his with trepidation.
"What are these supposed to do again?" he asked.
"Cause a nosebleed," both twins replied.
"Have we made the antidote yet?"
"We haven't made a sweet that's supposed to counter the nosebleed—"
"But we do have some things that should stop it."
"Well, here goes," Harish said. He lifted his and the twins did the same. "Cheers."
All three young men slipped their sweets into their mouths. Harish chewed and swallowed. A second later, he could feel something warm trickle down the inside of his nose. Harish looked down to see several drops of blood on the floor.
"Ugh," Harish groaned, holding his sleeve up to his nose.
The stream of blood was growing steadily stronger and soon his whole sleeve was soaked.
"George, where's dat andidode?" he asked, his voice sounding odd and muffled as he pinched his nose closed with the hem of his shirt.
"Uh, Fred?" George asked. "Didn't you have it?"
"No, you did," Fred said.
"Oh, Merlin!" Harish grumbled. "Sob-one had better get be some-ding very soon, or so help be—"
"Oh, you mean that antidote!" George exclaimed, rummaging through the cabinet. He was having a good deal of difficulty finding what they needed. Finally, he handed Harish a wad of something and said, "Hold this up to your nose."
Harish did so. It felt oddly like a ball of hair. After a second, he asked George (who was still digging in the cupboard), "What is dis stuff?"
"Spider web," George replied.
"Spider web?" Harish shrieked.
"Yeah, now shut up and hand be some," Fred complained. He was pinching his nose with a bright red hand and holding his head back.
"Whatever," George said, tossing a bit of spider web at Fred.
Then, George found what he was looking for. It was a little jar of orange powder.
"Smell this," he said to Harish, unscrewing the lid.
Harish put his nose into the jar and breathed in, hard.
"Ah!" he cried, pinching his nose and reeling backwards.
Fred sniffed it too, followed by George.
"Ow!" Harish shrieked.
"That stings!" Fred complained.
"Sorry!" George cried, not sounding very sorry.
All three young men's eyes were streaming.
"Forgot powdered sun pepper stings so much," George mumbled.
Fred rolled his eyes, flicking the blood off his hands.
"Well at least we know they work," he said.
"Yeah," Harish grumbled. "But it would've been nice if we had been able to stop the nosebleed sooner."
Just then the door opened and an ear-splitting shriek caused the three boys to clutch their ears.
"WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU BOYS?"
It was Mrs. Weasley. She was clutching her heart, leaning against the railing behind her.
"Nosebleed," Harish replied.
At the exact same moment, George responded with, "Ron broke my nose, but it's all better," and Fred said, "I ran headlong into the cheese grater."
"On second thought," Mrs. Weasley muttered, grabbing the doorknob and starting to shut the door, "I don't think I want to know."
A few days later, Harish and the twins stood talking on the railing outside the twins' room. Each of them were holding buckets that were tied to the railing. All three of them were laughing.
"So then Dung," Fred was saying. "Dung tells us that he said, 'Where'd you get all those toads, 'cause some son of a Bludger's gone and nicked all mine!'"
"And Dung said, 'Nicked all your toads? Well what next? You'll be wanting more?"
"And the guy bought the toads for twice he paid for them in the first place!"
And the three broke out in fresh gales of laughter. Then, Harish motioned for the twins to stop laughing, who did so, still shaking in silent giggles. They could hear footsteps coming from behind the door to the kitchen, coming up the stairs. Then, the door opened to reveal a red head of hair. After a second, it was clear that this was Ron. Once this was verified, Harish dropped the bucket over the railing, where it swung on its rope and white powder splattered itself onto Ron.
Ron stood there in shock, his eyes shut tight. Then, Fred dropped a second bucket. This one dropped water onto their brother. The powder all over the fifteen year old turned to goop for just a second before hardening.
Then, they could hear a muffled, "Mum! MUM! HELP! I can't move!"
A second later came muffled footsteps. As soon as they could see a shadow emerge through the crack under the kitchen door, George dropped the third bucket and the boys fled to the twins' room. As another wave of water washed over Ron, the hardened goop washed away and vanished. Seconds later, the door opened to reveal Mrs. Weasley, who stopped short at the sight of a soaked Ron.
"What's the matter Ron?" she asked. "Why are you all wet?"