Disclaimer: Don't own anything from the HP books, not even a snorkack.

The Weasley Kind of Help

Chapter 1: Hamster Eau de Nil

The door banged open. A second later the door banged shut. Quick steps between the shelves indicated someone or something approaching. Then it moved into the open, and by the look of it, turned out to be a red swamp monster.

"Hello, Red Swamp Monster," Fred greeted it.

"Shut up, Fred!" the swamp monster seemed to be in a bad mood. Although not in the worst of moods because it wasn't yelling and trashing around. Yet. But it wasn't very far from that, and taking the advice, Fred closed his mouth and kept silent.

"Tell me," the monster demanded, "have you seen Harry recently?"

"Ooh, lovers' trouble!" Fred hooted, momentarily forgetting who he was dealing with. He was saved the trouble of remembering that by himself, though, as suddenly a bottle of something bounced off his forehead.

"Hey, don't do that!" he cried, picking it up from the floor. "Smelly Socks isn't to be joked with."

"Everything in this shop is to be joked with," the monster huffed. "Besides, who'd wish to smell like old socks anyway."

"There's also Fish Stink and Rotten Eggs!" Fred announced automatically.

"If you don't tell me what I want to hear right now," the monster screamed, "I will pour you over with all three. And that would certainly be good for business."

Although Fred had the antidote to their Stinking Potions, he didn't have an antidote to rabid red swamp monsters, so he decided to obey once more.

"You are my favourite sister and I love you very much," he spoke quickly.

"I'm your only sister and about to kick your ass," Ginny corrected him, grabbing him by the collar and bringing his face down to her level. "Now tell me, have you seen Harry recently?"

"No!" Fred yelped, and watched the red swamp monster storm out of the shop, rubbing his injured neck.

A moment later he shrugged and forgot the incident, since it happened rather often these days.

The door banged open again, and then shut. Something bustled between the shelves, the appeared in front of him, looking bushy and frazzled.

"Have you seen my book? It can't find it anywhere!"

"What book?" Fred made the error of asking.

"Hogwarts, A History, of course!" Hermione exclaimed. "I can't remember taking it out of the house, but it isn't there, so it has to be somewhere else. Have you seen it?"

And without a warning Fred was once again grabbed by the collar and yanked down violently.

"I haven't seen it here," he replied, and watched the bushy whirlwind whirl away. His neck wasn't too happy about the treatment it had got, and Fred had to agree with it himself.

"Problems, problems, problems," he muttered to himself. "Why can't people be happy these days? The war is over, the sun is shining, and we do have a discount for Special Laughter Charms. But no! They just have to come here running and yelling and yanking and throwing things at me! And I wouldn't mind if they at least purchased something, but oh no, they just come here to yell and yank, yell and yank."

"Who yells and yanks?" George asked, silently closing the door behind him.

"Our dearest sister. And our dearest bookworm."

"Well, aren't you lucky today," George said sourly. "I just spent an hour with our dearest Ministress drooling over our dearest younger brother."

"You drooled over Ronniekins?" Fred raised a brow.

"No, she did."

Fred thought for a moment.

"Luna drooled over Ronniekins?"

"Yes."

"Did she fall asleep on him or something?"

"No. But she would love to."

"She's weird," Fred decided.

"Tell me about it," George rolled his eyes.

"Okay. First, she likes Ronniekins. Second, she dreams of Ronniekins. Third, she comes to you to talk about Ronniekins."

"Fourth," George added, "she thinks Ronniekins is hot."

"Well, he might be. The sun is rather warm today."

"I don't think she meant that," he protested.

"What else could she mean?"

George pondered it for a while, and in the end had to admit that the only way anyone could think little Ronniekins hot was warmed up by the sun.

"Anyway," he said in a while, pointedly ignoring Fred's triumphant expression. "All these people coming to us with all their problems are making me..."

"Annoyed? Disturbed? Crazy?"

"Hungry," George finished, "Let's go to the Hamster."

--

"Why in Merlin's third leg did you bring me to the Hamster?" George whined.

"Merlin had a third leg?"

"Oh yes. Didn't you know?"

"But why isn't it seen in any of the pictures of him?" Fred argued.

"Because it was invisible. Duh."

"Oh. And it was your idea to come here."

"Never mind," George brushed the responsibility for their trouble away, "What is Charlie doing here in England?"

"By the look of it," Fred stared at their brother, "drinking himself under the table. Let's hope he doesn't start singing."

"Should we go and... you know..."

"Help him? Comfort him? Drag him home?" Fred offered.

"Annoy him," George finished, giving his twin a funny look. It was already the second time today Fred had failed to read his thoughts, and it was also the second time today Fred had sounded caring. Something was amiss.

Something was definitely amiss. With Fred. And with the world in general. And with the Hamster as well. Because what kind of person would name their club The Nile Coloured Hamster? And like that wasn't bad enough, they had named it Hamster Eau de Nil instead. Perhaps it was to keep people away from this place, and by the look of it, they had indeed succeeded. No one came here these days anymore. No one but the Weasleys, and Harry, and Hermione, and Malfoy, and Moody. But Moody didn't count because he was the barkeep. And Malfoy and Harry shouldn't count either because each of them owned half of the place. So that only left Hermione and the Weasleys. Well, at least there was a lot of the latter. Oh, and then there was Luna, too. But she only came here to drool over Ronniekins, or rant to George about her drooling over Ronniekins.

"George?" Fred spoke after a while. "Do you want to save the world?"

"Not that I know of. But I do want your cranberry muffin, some dragon scales, and a crumple-horned snorkack."

"You can have the muffin, but dragon scales aren't edible, idiot."

"Neither are crumple-horned snorkacks," George commented, happily munching on Fred's muffin.

"I think," he added in a moment.

"Why do you want them then?" Fred inquired.

"I have an idea. Something new for our shop."

"That's great, George," Fred beamed, "but there's just this teeny tiny problem with it."

"What's that?"

"Crumple-horned snorkacks don't exist."

"That's too bad. I'd love to throw one at Luna so that she would stop drooling over ickle Ronniekins in front of me."

"Planning to assassinate the Ministress of Magic?" someone spoke out, proceeding to sit down at their table.

"You know, Malfoy, just because you own half of this place and are engaged to Hermione doesn't mean you can intrude yourself upon us like that," George explained, while Fred exclaimed,

"Yo, Draco!"

This joyous greeting was met with two (or three if you'd also count Charlie, who raised his head from the table and looked around with hazy expression) surprised stares directed at Fred, one of which was slightly accusing, other rather suspicious, and third (that is, if you did count Charlie) totally inebriated.

"What?" Fred demanded, getting confused himself.

"That was a rather unorthodox greeting, wasn't it?"

"It had nothing to do with any doxies, auto or not," Fred protested.

"No, I meant that it wasn't usual."

"Autodoxies?"

"No, your 'Yo, Draco' greeting."

"But what about autodoxies?"

"What about them?"

"I don't know, you brought them up."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did," Fred insisted, then turned to Draco who was watching the exchange with wry amusement. "How is it rolling then?"

"No, I didn't," George objected. "How's what rolling?"

"Yes, you did. Life, of course."

"Fine, I suppose," Draco managed to insert a sentence of his own into the twins' conversation.

"Where does life roll?" George asked, his interest piqued.

"Down the hill, I suppose."

"But what if it reaches the lowest point?"

"Then someone must roll it up the hill again."

"Oh. The same hill?"

"What's wrong with the same hill?" Fred demanded.

"Nothing, nothing," George said quickly.

"Good," Fred nodded at him, then looked at Draco again,

"How're things going with our favourite bookworm?"

"Do things roll as well, or only life does that?" George interrupted.

"Some things roll, like balls or bottles. But others like forks or fireplaces don't."

"Fine. She threw me out of my house."

"Oh," said George, thought for a moment, and added, "Oh!"

"Does she often throw you out of your house?" Fred inquired tactfully.

"Not really. Usually just out of the room," Draco explained.

"But this time she threw you out of a window instead of a door?" George suggested.

"No, this time she threw me out of the front door and warded the place off against me."

"Wow!" said Fred and George at once.

"Let's go!" the former exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

"Sure," George agreed, and saying good-bye to Draco (or, in Fred's case, yo), they walked out of Hamster Eau de Nil.

"Where are we going?" George asked after a while.

"We are going to break into the Malfoy Manor," Fred explained.

"Oh, okay," George agreed, and Apparated away after his twin.

--

"Screwdriver!"

"You don't need a screwdriver to break through wards," George protested, but conjured him one anyway.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, brother of mine. Screwdrivers are very important."

"You don't even know what a screwdriver is."

"Of course I do," Fred declared, picking up the object. "It's for catching lightning."

"And getting yourself killed," George added.

"That, or imprisoning the lightning into the screwdriver so you can have some eckeltricity."

"Does that have something to do with eclairs?"

Fred decided the question was not worthy of an answer, so he contended himself with a haughty look at his brother before turning back to the window at hand.

After they had managed to take down the first four wards, George got a bit curious.

"Not that I mind doing this, but is there any reason why we are breaking into Malfoy's house?"

"I just thought it might be fun. Isn't it?"

"Sure," George agreed. "As long as there is no one drooling about ickle Ronniekins by my side, I'm happy."

"How about ickle Ginniekins?" Fred inquired.

"What! Who's drooling over Ginny? I'll kill him!" George exclaimed.

"Hold your brotherly feelings at bay. You might frighten poor Harriekins away."

"Harriekins? Where?"

"Hey, guys," Harry said, stopping behind the twins, "what are you doing?"

"Hey, Harry," George greeted. "We are breaking into."

"Oh. Any particular reason?"

"Nah, just for fun."

"Want to join us?" Fred offered, carefully removing the fifth layer.

"Perhaps some other time. Is Hermione home?"

"I don't know. We haven't got in yet. But you can always ring the bell."

"I'll do that. Bye, guys."

"He looked a little depressed, didn't he?" George mentioned to his brother when Harry was gone.

"I told you he is pining for our favourite red swamp monster."

"And what about our favourite red swamp monster?"

"Well, she is going around, yelling and yanking people."

"And drooling over dear Harriekins?"

"That too."

For a while they worked in silence. Then suddenly George exclaimed "Done!" and after opening the window, they both climbed into the house.

"We should do something," Fred said seriously.

"Ah, don't worry, sharks don't eat people. And when it comes too close, I'll stab it with my screwdriver," George calmed his brother, removing one of his hands from the bars above the huge shark pool the room had metamorphosed into the moment their feet had touched the floor, and taking the screwdriver out of his pocket.

"That's my screwdriver," Fred corrected him, "and I didn't mean that. I meant that perhaps we should make people happy."

"We are not giving out the Special Laughing Charms for free!"

"Of course not! But perhaps we could... you know... push certain people towards other certain people. And things like that."

"You want to play a matchmaker?" George asked in shock.

"Or a shark trainer," Fred suggested.

George looked at the shark, then at the screwdriver, then at his brother.

"You do know that we can take our wands and magic us out of here?" he asked.

"Of course. But that would be no fun at all."

"True. So who are we going to push towards each other?"

"Harriekins and Ginniekins!" Fred supplied.

"And then there's also Hermione, and Ron, and Luna, and Charlie for us to push around."

"And Draco."

"And Draco," George agreed.

"You're in then?"

"In the shark pool? Certainly. In the pushing people around thing? You bet."

George and Fred grinned at each other. The shark grinned at both of them.