FicWad

Chapter 51: Through the Window


Wednesday, January 16, 1991


"Only fifteen points? I was expecting worse, with that look McGonagall was giving me." Oliver looked relieved.

"I think she was just trying not to laugh," mused Charlie.

"So why'd she just take you three," asked Lee, "and not me or Oliver?"


"That," said George, "is because Professor McGonagall wisely recognizes that nothing remotely interesting would happen around here if it weren't for us."

"It worked, didn't it?" observed Fred, pointing around the table. "Everything looks neat and tidy again. Totally justified on her part."


Lee looked puzzled. "You want her blaming you?"


The twins looked at each other. "It's not so much blaming . . ."

". . . as giving credit where it's due."


"So what was the deal with dragging Charlie along, then?"

"Well," said Charlie, while cutting himself a piece of treacle tart, "she knows I get up to all sorts of things she can't catch me at. Bill was the same way. If I do my job right, sooner or later these two will stop getting caught so much, too. They just keep trying different stuff than Bill and I did, and also I've been falling down on the job."

George and Fred looked at each other. "Hey, that's true," said Fred, "you have only half a year left. If you have any brotherly wisdom, you better get to imparting it!"

Charlie grinned. "Well, I am sick of being trapped in the school while everyone pretends moving in groups will stop a basilisk. Want to have a go at the wards? Once we get back, go fetch that book Bill gave you, and we'll try one of the windows on the boys' stairs."

Oliver looked shocked. "Seriously? You're just publicly admitting to it?"

"Want to help?" Charlie grinned even wider at Oliver's look of horror. "Surely you don't think mere students could get through the legendary Hogwarts wards, do you? Even if we are Weasleys."

"So . . ." started Fred, then stopped. The twins looked puzzled. "You figure they would be fun to bang away at, and they are so strong no one will pay attention?"

"Something like that." Charlie looked very interested in his treacle tart. "Where is that fairy, anyway?" He leaned forward to look up and down the table. Treacle-mustard was flying around the chasers and their friends, holding a fork . . . she was actually trying to feed the girls mouthfuls of tart from mid-air. Charlie pointed.

"Huh," said George. "Suppose that's what McGonagall didn't want to see?"

Fred looked thoughtful. "If the fairy comes back, we should send her up to the faculty table to try that."

"I bet Dumbledore would go along with it—Mcgonagall's look would be priceless."

"I don't know," said Lee, "wouldn't Snape just hex the fairy for being cute?"

Charlie looked up at the table. "Oh, we could warn her away from him, and send her over to Sprout or something. Wow. Some of them would just die of embarrassment."

"You mean like Trelawney?" offered Fred. "Actually that's almost too cruel."

"I don't know, you two," said Charlie, "I wouldn't underestimate her. Remember that story about the pigeons?" No one really wanted to follow that train of thought. "Still, I'd pay to see the fairy try to hand-feed McGonagall."

Fortunately for the professors, Treacle-mustard was otherwise occupied.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"I just don't see how this could possibly be permitted." Charlie had managed to rope Percy into stopping by their impromptu ward-breaking session on the stairs up the boys' dormitory, saying Bill had made him promise to include all of the Weasley siblings in this sort of thing. "You can't just go attacking parts of the Hogwarts wards on a whim!"

"Mmm." Charlie looked thoughtful for a moment. There was quite a crowd here, which probably made Percy feel a little more comfortable, but it was obviously not enough. "How about this? You know Dumbledore has a zillion little monitoring devices in his office? Do you really think he wouldn't know about it if we actually managed to punch through?"

"So you're saying you expect to get in trouble?"

"No, I expect that the wards are so strong that nothing we could possibly do would make Dumbledore bother coming all the way over here. So it makes them a good target for studying warding charms—we might as well get some benefit out of the damn thing being right against the window now."

"I don't like it."

"So, you can just watch, then. Feel free to report us to McGonagall if we actually succeed at anything. In the meantime, the rest of us are going to study this truly elegant piece of security magic. Oh, come on Percy, how do you think Bill got good enough to land the Gringott's job? You need practical experience for that kind of thing, and this might be the only chance you ever get to try your hand against a ward this powerful without actually getting in trouble for it."

"I think you're just making excuses. If Professor Flitwick thought this was pedagogically sound, wouldn't he have us do it in class?"

"He can't cover everything ever. And what I was hoping to work on tonight—if we could stop arguing—is some fairly specialized magic. Okay?"

"Okay." Percy did not look like he was okay. He folded his arms, and frowned, and stood in the back of the group. But he didn't leave, either.

Charlie had the twins—and then anyone else who wanted to try—cast various revealing charms out the window, letting them see the ward that was keeping them in. He made them identify several properties of it, then asked what spells they would use to try to punch through or take it down if it were weaker (technically, he explained, taking it down entirely was next to impossible without access to the anchor points).

Charlie moved on to his next bit of the lesson by sending a really powerful bolt at the ward, which actually opened a small hole before the ward fixed itself and closed it up again.

"I thought you said that was impossible?" Percy looked like he thought he might have been tricked.

"I said doing any real damage was impossible. I didn't say we couldn't do anything Dumbledore would notice."


Fred raised his hand, pretending to be in class. "When you say 'notice' . . ." ". . . what exactly do you mean?"

"Because we've been in the Headmaster's office . . ."

". . . and it is positively full of things that go 'ding!' or buzz or whirr or the like."

"So what we are wondering, then . . ."

". . . is whether something in Dumbledore's office just went 'ding' right then."


Charlie smiled. "I'm counting on it!"

The twins produced their 'dawning realization' look, then started cheerfully blasting away at the ward, coming up with more and more ridiculous patterns, many only possible through acting in concert.

It was at this point that Percy rolled his eyes and went off to bed. A few other students followed, deciding that nothing else interesting was going to happen, leaving behind Charlie, the twins, and Lee.

"Nice job," said Charlie. "That should be enough to get him to deactivate any sound effects on the ward monitor. Be back here at, oh, say, half past midnight?"


Lee didn't get it yet, but the twins had their mouths open in shock.


"You mean, that was all . . ."

". . . with Percy watching, too?"


Charlie just grinned. "Go study that book in the meantime. Lee, I'd love to have an extra wand tonight—if you feel like joining us, that is?" Lee still looked puzzled. "Oh, I'll let the twins explain. Anyway, I'll see you all in a few hours."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Great! Thanks for coming, Lee!"

"No problem."

It was dark, and Charlie, Lee, and the twins were huddled around the window. The window itself was of the casement variety, hinging mostly inwards and set in a very thick wall. The ancient glass had only survived unbroken through centuries of Gryffindor boys by means of multiple strengthening spells. While no one cared about heating bills in a magical castle with powerful warming charms, the fact that it was open to the night air in the middle of winter was still noticeable throughout the staircase. Not that Hogwarts was naturally warm in the winter; it wasn't. But no amount of confundus charms would keep all of a hundred-odd students from noticing a draft.

Their first project was simply to block the draft. The twins turned out to be disturbingly adept at indoor weather modification; Lee and Charlie were gratifyingly impressed.

Charlie's plan to clear the ward away from the window was ambitious and required nearly an hour to complete, but at the end of it they had painstakingly pinned the edges of a hole to the sides of the window, stretching the hole from point to point until the ward couldn't close on itself and there was room to pass through.

"Looks good," said Charlie, leaning over and waving his hand where the ward used to be. "That should last until somebody makes a change in the wards again. Not sure how often that happens, but I doubt Dumbledore fiddles with it more than he thinks he has to. Thanks guys—you have no idea how trapped I have been feeling these past few days."

Charlie picked up a bag from the floor, pulled his broom from it and unshrunk it, and slung the bag over his back.

The twins looked at each other. George yawned, and Fred followed suit. "Ah, Charlie," asked Fred, "you're not expecting us to join you, right?"

"It's not my fault if you left your brooms in the Quidditch locker room."

"No, no, that's quite alright," said George. "We're excellent spelunkers now, you see."

Charlie raised his eyebrows.

"But," said Fred, "it's nearly two in the morning, and as much as we hate to admit it . . ."

". . . we actually do have these things called classes which we are expected to go to."

"Oh! That's fine—go ahead and get some sleep, then. The window ought to still be here in the morning. See you tomorrow!" And, with that, he was off. Actually, he climbed onto the sill and jumped off, not using his broom until he was in mid-drop. Lee and the twins had seen that kind of thing before, but it was still pretty unnerving.





❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖





Author's notes:

Short, but I'm sure this is what comes next, so I might as well post it while I'm stuck on whatever follows. Basically I know what I want to cover in the next 10-20 chapters, but have no idea how I want to do it or in what order. I'm not sure that is even worthy of being called "writer's block".

You should expect updates to be slow at best for probably the next few months. Unless I get some sudden grasp on what to do next, and write a whole bunch all at once. That would be nice, but is unlikely.

In any event the story isn't dead, I'm not dead, it's just in a period of slow updates. I have way, way too much I want to write about in this story. It is not at risk of abandonment.