1st Step of Pranking

"Cookies! Cookies! I made cookies!" Six years old Ginny Weasley bounced up the stairs bellowing on top of her lungs, a plate of oven-hot cookies balancing dangerously in her hands. "Fred, George, I made cookies!"

The twins abandoned the battered book they had been writing corrections into when the red ball of energy burst in through the door of their room.

"Cookies!" she beamed at them, showing off both of her missing teeth.

"Congratulations, Ginny!" Fred exclaimed with mock excitement, jumping up from the floor and clapping his hands together in a way that much mimicked Great Auntie Muriel on her finer days.

"Our little Ginny, all grown up," George added, drying an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye.

Ginny, though, didn't seem to be disturbed by their antics.

"I made them for you!" she added, smiling again with all the innocence of six years. "Here you are," and she placed the plate on George's messy bed, disappearing from view.

As soon as the door closed with a bang behind the lithe form, Fred prodded one of the cookies with a finger.

"They smell rather nice," he admitted.

"Yeah, they do," George agreed with a dreamy voice, and also poked a cookie. "You think they're safe for eating?"

Fred shrugged.

"She's only six," he said, twirling a delicious-looking biscuit. "Besides, they're with chocolate."

"Remember us at six?" George, the wavering voice of reason in the room, reminded his brother. "And chocolate is a wonderful thing to hide potions in, as you should well know."

"You're right." Fred sighed wistfully. They were both staring at the plate of sweets with hurtful expressions, as if the cookies were responsible for what might happen if they ate them.

"We should have someone taste them," George suggested finally, not managing to turn his hungry eyes and watering mouth away from the plate.

Fred nodded, but other than that, didn't move. Suddenly there was a hesitant knock on the door.

The twins turned to look at each other, waken from the stupor.

"Who's there?" Fred asked.

"Percy," came the unexpected answer.

Identical grins spread across the two identical faces.

"Come on in, dear brother," George invited, quickly hiding Percy's old potions book that they had been improving under his pillow.

"How can we help you?" Fred asked as the tall bespectacled form entered the room, carefully shutting the door after him.

"Well," he started, "I was thinking…"

"Yes?" Fred probed with a huge smile.

"Have a seat!" George said, grinning, swiping a pile of books, crumpled parchment, quills, and other assorted items to the floor from the only chair in the room. Percy sat slowly, his eyes moving around nervously all the time, as if he wasn't sure whether he was doing the right thing.

"September is nearing…" Percy said carefully.

"It surely is! Wonderful, isn't it?" Fred chirped.

"There'll be mud everywhere!" George nodded fervently. "Have a cookie!" and he pushed the plate under Percy's nose.

Percy looked at the plate distantly, but then shook his head.

"No, thanks, dinner will be soon and nobody should eat sweets before dinner." He inhaled slowly, then looked up at his twin brothers. "I need your help."

The two faces that had fallen when Percy had refused the cookies, now simultaneously turned to an expression of surprise.

"Our help?" George asked carefully.

"Yes. Well, you see, I'll be going to Hogwarts this autumn…"

"You are?" the twins asked in unison, looking at each other with extreme fake wonder.

"You are!" they decided after a moment, pointing accusingly at Percy. After a moment, though, they were forced to let their fingers drop down, for Percy refused to start shouting at them. He seemed to be really worried about something.

"What do you want, then?" Fred asked finally, scrutinizing his morose older brother.

"I want you to teach me to make people like me!" Percy answered fervently. "I want you to teach me how to make people laugh, how to make them feel good in my company. I want you to teach me how to make everyone think that I'm a fun person to be around." He took a breath. "I want you to teach me how to prank people."

"Have a cookie!" Fred said in a slow voice with something closely resembling awe in it, intoning the sentence as if the words were "Well, finally!"

Percy shook his head again, somehow looking ashamed at having asked for help from his younger brothers and for something like that.

George instantly took the line over from his twin.

"You really do deserve a cookie! You've successfully completed lesson number one! Can you tell us what it was?"

At this question, a bit of eagerness returned to Percy's features, and Fred gave George a thumbs-up.

"I think," Percy started, analyzing it like he always analyzed everything, "that, logically thinking, the first lesson in pranking should be acknowledging one's own incompetence in the field and then getting in contact with someone with more expertise, and then asking them to be their teacher?"

"And you have indeed found the true masters of the art!" Fred beamed. "Don't you think you deserve a cookie?"

Percy shrugged and finally took one, taking a large bite of it and slowly chewing it through.

The twins considered him carefully, trying to see if any part of him changed colour or developed a rash or something. Nothing seemed to happen.

Percy finished the cookie, licked his fingers, and gave his younger brothers first smile over many years.

"Thanks, that was delicious!"

Fred and George smiled brightly back at him, then at each other, and dug for the plate of cookies. After a few moments of struggle they resurfaced from George's bed, both having a couple of biscuits in their mouths and a few more in their hands; the plate was left quite empty.

Percy chuckled slightly as he watched his brothers devouring their sweets, and even more as he heard their mother's voice bellowing through the house, calling everyone to dinner. He left the room proudly, not waiting for his new teachers, happy for having completed the first step of pranking so easily, and happy that his gluttonous brothers had ruined their appetites, and he had not.