Hide and Seek with Fred and George

The living room…no.

The cellar…no.

Their bedroom…no.

Fred stared at all the Muggle artifacts and sat down in the middle of his dad's shed. Yes, this was the place that they would plan their birthday surprise. "Wait, George! Don't touch that!"

George drew his hand away as a whole stack of automobile hubcaps came crashing down around them. "Ooops!" he said sheepishly.

Fred would think that they'd learned by now not to touch anything in their dad's shed. But George sometimes got carried away. They weren't even supposed to be in here by themselves, but it was the only empty, private place they could find away from little Ron and Ginny. Bill had promised to take them broom flying that afternoon, since they were all grown up eight year olds, and they were supposed to be watching their younger siblings until then.

"You think they're alright while we're in here?" he asked his brother.

"Ron's five, and Ginny's not a baby anymore. They'll be fine for another few minutes without us. I told them to play hide and seek."

Fred nodded. Yeah, they were fine.

"Okay, so help me stack these things back up." George poked at him.

Fred and George took way longer than they'd thought to stack all the automobile hub caps back the way they were. When they were done, Fred stepped back to admire the shiny stack of round disks. He could see why his dad liked these things. They'd make excellent play shields against dragon fire, or small trays to collect pebbles with. Or maybe they could be used to make a border around Mum's garden to scare away the gnomes.

"Fred!"

"What?" He looked at his brother, who was pointing urgently at the house. One of the windows was open, and small wisps of smoke were coming out. That couldn't be good.

They started running for the house.

"Ginny! Ron!"

"Ron! Ginny!"

"It's no use, Fred," George sighed. "They won't answer if they think we're playing the game."

"Oh, yeah." Fred thought this was the worst time ever for Ron and Ginny to actually start using the rules. "We'd better find them!"

They called all through the first floor. No one was in the kitchen. The bathroom toilet seats were closed (Fred had once found Ron hiding inside a toilet, so he thought he'd better check, just in case). They called and called, but no one answered.

"I'll take the upper floors," George called, racing up the stairs.

"I'll check the basement!" Fred ran through the house and slipped on the entrance rug. He slid several feet and hit his head against the wall. "Oww!"

That's when he noticed the blue spots on the floor. One, two, three… the spots were in a wobbly line. Fred got his face real close to one of the spots that was no bigger than his thumb and touched it. It was smooth, perfectly round, and smelled like wax. Suddenly the smoke made sense.

"George!"

George came running down the stairs. "What? Did you find them?"

"No, but they found the stash of birthday candles. Look!"

George and Fred followed the trail of blue wax all the way into the pantry, and found Ron and Ginny in the middle of a pile of chocolate chips. Ron's face was smeared brown, and Ginny had an empty bag on her head.

"Found me!" she squealed, and ran off.

"Wait!" Fred called, but she was already out the door.

"I'll get her," George said. "You stay here."

"Okay," Fred said to Ron. "You help me clean this all up. Mum's going to be quite cross if she finds this mess in here."

Ron's smile turned into a frightened 'oh'. Miraculously, Fred and Ron managed to clean up the mess. Fred even wiped down his brother's face and got all the chocolate off.

"Whew! That took forever!"

George came back with Ginny under his arm. "She might be five, but she's fast," he said.

"We'd better keep an eye on them until Bill comes," Fred said. Being eight was fun, but not when they had to clean up messes that they didn't even make. There was still wax on the floor, too.

George and Fred built a fort out of cushions in the living room and put Ginny and Ron inside. "Play here," George told them.

"Play what?" asked Ron.

"Dunno. Use your imagination. I gotta help Fred clean up the wax."

Fred and George spent a LOT of time scraping wax off the floor. There were a lot of drips and dribbles, but they finally got them all up.

"I'll be glad when we can use a wand like Bill," George said.

"Yeah, but that's not for YEARS," complained Fred, who had been listening to Ron and Ginny making noises, just so he could make sure they were still in the living room. They had been laughing and whooping the whole time, so he thought everything was safe until he saw what they'd been doing.

"What's going on in here?" Fred couldn't believe his eyes. All the couch cushions had disappeared, and a bumping sound came from above him.

"Whee!" Ginny came sliding down the stairs on one of the cushions. Ron came sliding after her. Fred and George caught each of them before they crashed into the fireplace.

"This isn't a good game either," George said. "If anyone sees this, we won't be allowed to go flying with Bill when he gets here."

"You're right. Everyone, put the cushions back," he ordered. Ginny and Ron looked sad, but they did what they were told.

"I know," George said. "Let's take them outside."

Fred thought about this. He figured that they had a big enough yard, and Ron and Ginny still didn't run as fast as his brother or himself. Things should be okay out there.

"Let's go!"

As soon as they were outside, Ron yelled, "Tag!" and headed for the treeline. Ginny laughed and ran after him. Fred and George joined in, and soon they were running and running and jumping and playing.

George agreed with his that it was a great day after all.

Later, when Bill came home with brooms under his arm, he couldn't find George or Fred. He couldn't find Ginny or Ron either.

"Where could they be?"

He searched through the house upstairs and down, (and even checked the toilet twice) and finally went outside to look. There, beneath the shade trees, he found a pile of children asleep.

"Found you," he whispered.