Author’s Note: This… this is a very strange piece that, according to the original copy, I had written about three days after the last one was posted on 02-22-06. There is one other I may post after this was written one day after, on the 23rd of February, but I like this one more, so up this one goes. Please excuse the incredibly huge difference of time between this and my last post. Unfortunately, I am easily distracted. (World of Warcrack, anyone?) I might consider posting the other one soon, especially since, as seen in book 7, she had changed her mind about ending the book with the word “scar” so a bit of pressure off my back, but first I need to decipher what the heck I had written. So, I suppose you could consider this my birthday to you (yup, the big 2-5, halfway to vingtage now and all that jazz.) Okay, commencing story now.

The End?

The package was, as usual, in a plain white paper wrapper with the Honeydukes stamp in the upper right corner. Malfoy, sneering at Wormtail, shoved it roughly into Wormtail’s hands. “Don’t see why you can’t make your own candy runs,” he frowned. “Or has your supply of Polyjuice run out again?”

Wormtail squinted his eyes at Malfoy. “L-Lord Voldemort requires these for testing. Are you questioning the Dark Lord’s commands, Lucius?”

Malfoy looked down his nose, his lip curling back in anger. “Of course not, Wormtail. It was merely an inquiry—”

“Which you had no reason to inquire about. I’ll just take these to our Lord now.” Wormtail and Malfoy glared icily at each other for a moment before Lucius shrugged and turned to the floo.

“I’ll be on my way then.” In a flash of green flames, he was gone.

Wormtail stared at the empty floo for a moment before turning his attention to the package. He sniffed the box loudly, his nose twitching in obvious delight at the wonderful smells emanating from the box. Surely having just one couldn’t hurt.

“Wormtail,” Voldemort called out. “Did the package arrive?”

Wormtail fumbled the box, nearly dropping it, but thankfully his silver hand managed to catch it and pull it tight to his chest. “Yes, m’Lord. Just a moment, I’m running the usual spells to—”

“Bring it here, I’ll do them myself.” Wormtail nodded, before scurrying forward, wincing as Voldemort continued with “You’d probably make a mess of the spells anyway.”

Voldemort gestured to the table next to them, his eyes focused on the book, as he slipped his wand out, poised to run the usual gamut of tests on the package of sweets. Wormtail placed the box on the table and stepped back, greedy eyes pinned to the box. After a minute of nearly silent wand-waving, he gave the final flick of his wand and the packaging opened itself, revealing its savory, minty, chocolatey, sugar spun, caramel, cream-filled contents. Wormtail leaned in to take a peek at the treasure trove of sweets.

“Oh, there are some new ones…” Wormtail paused, realizing what he had just said.

“Ah, so there are. So good of you to volunteer,” Voldemort lifted the buttery colored cream and held it up to Wormtail’s face.

“Oh, ye-yes, m’Lord,” Wormtail smiled weakly, gingerly taking the treat in between his fingers and tremulously taking a bite. “Ah, it’s good, a lemon-crème filling.” He quickly ate the rest.

“Rather hasty assessment, Wormtail, but I do enjoy a good lemon crème,” Voldemort picked up the other one and sunk his sharp teeth into it, half-slurping the crème out before chewing down the rest.

He gestured to the box, in which toffees and mint patties and almond clusters glistened invitingly in their crisp white wrappers. Both fell to the treats, neither noticing the two tiny mice nibbling on an old bit of nougat in the corner of the room that quietly scurried out through a crack under the door.

Wormtail, teeth full of toffee, suddenly gave a hiccough and turned into a very large canary. Voldemort stared for all of half a second before he too hiccoughed and became a rather large canary as well. Then, their tongues started to enlarge, hanging further and further out of their beaks, lolling about like giant worms about their knobby bird knees, their wings flapping in panic, scrabbling at wands that, upon touching them, turned into rubber chickens and fake rats, until, finally, both fell to the floor, very quiet and very still.

• • •

Malfoy silently slipped through the rooms of the manor, carefully inching the door to the parlor open, peering in, breath still, held tightly in his chest. The sight of two giant, slow molting canaries, lying in a pile of fake wands, made him release his breath in a loud bark of laughter before he clapped his hand over his mouth. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a silvered snuff box, opening it to reveal the shard of a very special mirror and called out, “Mione, Mione, you there?”

“Harry, I thought we agreed on no names!” her hushed, high whisper came back, her soft brown eye glaring sharply through one half, Ron’s bright blue eye crinkled anxiously almost right next to hers.

“Did they, did they eat them, then?” Ron’s urgent whisper half strangled in his excitement. “I mean, we thought the new sampler selection might put them off but, well, since they were planning the new one, you know, yeah?”

“They ate them, they went for the fake wands that Neville and Luna managed to plant after I let them out of my pocket when I dropped off the goods, they are two large, dead canaries,” Harry said, his voice a bit louder now, inching into the room. The heel of his highly polished black boot nudged the wing of one of the canaries and he pulled it back quickly as all the feathers fell off to reveal a robed arm. “Yech, it’s kinda gross, like something out of a horror movie, only not quite so big. Half man, half bird.”

“And all dead, right?”

Harry blinked and looked back down at the snuff box to see a pair of sharp, ice blue eyes staring out of the mirror.

“Yes George, they are about as dead as dead can get.”

The blue eyes crumpled close a moment, pained, then opened, victorious and sorrowful all at once. “Good.”

There was some motion as the mirror was passed around and Hermione’s eyes came back into view. “Sorry about that Harry, anyway, clean up, get Neville and Luna and get out of there – there’s some noise at the ministry and one of the D.E.’s may be heading over any moment.”

“Right,” he closed snuff box and crouched near the floor, picking up a couple of the fake wands and shoving them in his wand pocket before making a sweep with his wand and summoning the rest of the stuff, feathers included. An inquisitive squeak nearby made him glance over to see two pairs of bright eyes from under an ancient armoire.

“Hey guys, c’mon, let’s get out of here before the Polyjuice wears off,” he smiled tightly before tugging his pocket open. Both mice dashed out from their hiding stuff and clambered noisily into the pocket.

• • •

“…And now, heedlessly, both reach for the toffees, and now, unknowingly, they unwrap the sweets and eat those too. For while the tests check for curses, poisons, jinxes, hexes, and other malicious tricks, they do not, unfortunately for the Dark Lord and his servant, check for pranks.

“And now, the Weasley twins’ ingenious Wizarding Wheezes prove themselves invaluable, especially more so with a carefully engineered time-release formula made to activate upon consumption of both a canary cream and a ton-tongue toffee, which would then not subside for a full five minutes unless the proper countercharms and potions were administered, long enough for the plot to have fulfilled its destiny and to smite down He Who Must Not Be Named and his number one supporter, a previously supposed deceased Peter Pettigrew, cont. page 8 Boy Who Prevailed”

Hermione snorted, giving the Prophet a shake, before thumbing over to continue reading the article. “Glad to see Rita Skeeter is putting that pen of hers to good use.”

“Got a flare for the dramatics, doesn’t she?” Ron agreed. “Ought ta send her some canary creams, you know? She thinks they’re so ingenious and all”

Hermione put the paper down thoughtfully. “How’s George anyway? I’ve barely seen him since—”

“He’s sleeping. You know, he barely slept since Fred died, so, sleeping is good.”

“It is.” Hermione nodded then glanced over at Harry, who was poking his fork absentmindedly at his bangers and beans. “And how are you, Harry? I mean, having had to pretend to be Malfoy for so long, and…” She fell silent as Harry put his fork down and rubbed a hand tiredly over his face.

“Not good, but not bad either. I’m just, you know, I know it’s gonna get better, but it’s, you know, it’s taking some time, like, I’m relieved, but it’s still taking some time for it all to just sink in.” Harry paused, lowering his hand a bit. “I’m just glad I get to wear my own face again,” and he reached up for perhaps the fiftieth time that day to touch his scar.

Whoo, okay, the original bit was this crack thing about how Fred and George Weasley somehow or other discover that Voldemort has this huge sweet tooth and switch his weekly Honeydukes delivery with a special mix up of their classic Wizarding Wheezes, including swapping out their wands with their trick wands. Really, it was totally crack, and a lot more hilarious than what the final product became (so serious! I couldn’t believe it, really, and am still confused how it happened, but oh well.) Anywho, in case you missed it, Fred died – he was always seemed more vicious, and more likely to go on the attack, which I figured meant it was very likely to make him killed – you know, so Gryffindory he was reckless and left himself completely exposed to danger, oh, and what else? … Ah, in this, well, my Snapey has died (cries) while finding out Voldemort’s weakness (sweet tooth extreme), so he makes no cameo at the end, oh, and Ginny dies (cheers) when Fred dies (cries) while defending the shop, and Ginny’s dying is what helped pull Neville and Luna into the whole scheme. Um, that’s it for this version of The End? and I’m still not sure whether or not I will post my other piece (for some reason I’m having a hard time ending the piece with “scar.”) I might, I might. But I’m a rather indecisive sort of person, oh, and apparently rather chatty right now (wowies) so, ah, I guess I’ll end this now. Byes!