The Attack of the Brat Pack!

Chapter 2

The following week the Gryffindor and Slytherin 5^th years all waited outside the Muggle Studies classroom door, each with a look of nervous apprehension on his or her face. None of them spoke, all either pretending to be deeply absorbed in the floorboards or the beams across the ceiling. After about five minutes the door to the classroom opened and Arthur Weasley's head poked round to beam at them all.

"In you come then, all of you! The children are over there, please wait in a line at the front of the class where I will tell you who will be with each child." The students made their way into the classroom, all gazing around for a sight of the children. Lavender, who was the first into the classroom, let out a sudden "Awwww!" The other students all turned to see where she was looking.

Curled up in large armchairs were seven small children, all wearing identical green W.I.T t-shirts, blue jeans and gleaming white trainers. They all looked unbelievably sweet, with their thumbs in their mouths and their hair loose around their small faces. At first sight all of the children appeared to be fast asleep. As Harry watched, he noticed that none of the children appeared to be breathing although they stayed a perfectly normal colour.

"Er...Mr Weasley?" he asked nervously although he did not remove his gaze from the children, "they don't appear to be breathing."

"Oh nothing to worry about Harry, nothing to worry about!" said Mr Weasley airily, glancing at his completely still, almost lifeless group of youngsters. "Now then, these kids are all under a heavy Sleeping Draught. The only way to wake them is by placing one of these," he pulled out a red and white striped candy cane from his robe pocket, "inside their mouths. That will instantly wake them." Harry hoped Mr Weasley would wake the children up as soon as possible. Their eerie silence and lack of movement was making him feel decidedly uneasy.

"What on earth are they wearing?" asked Draco, his voice full of sarcasm.

"They are wearing what Muggle children would wear," explained Mr Weasley. "You see the trainers and jeans and t-shirts, we did this last term Draco!"

"Oh silly me," muttered Draco. "How could I have forgotten. Learning about the bizarre clothes these Muggles get dressed up in is fascinating, it really is." Mr Weasley ignored him.

"What does the W.I.T stand for on their t-shirts, sir?" asked Parvati. Mr Weasley beamed once more.

"It stands for Wizard/Witch In Training," he explained. "Their memories will of course be modified at the end of this project, but throughout it these children will be attending all of your lessons with you and you will be responsible for ensuring that they behave themselves. Now, which child shall we pick first? Let me see...ah yes." He walked up and down the row of children, stopping next to a girl with short brown hair. "Parvati and Gregory, please come here." The two students stepped up to him nervously. "This is Zara, you'll be looking after her for the next two weeks. She's seven." Mr Weasley then very gently removed Zara's thumb from her mouth and slipped a candy cane inside it. At once Zara appeared to come to life. Her large green eyes snapped open. She sat up and looked around her. She spotted Parvati and Goyle and gave them a large smile with white, slightly crooked teeth.

"Hello, are you going to be my new foster parents for the next two weeks, my name's Zara Elizabeth Mackenzie and I'm seven years, eleven weeks and four days old, normally I live in a big house with my mummy and my daddy and my two older brothers who are called Michael Samuel Mackenzie and Thomas Bernard Mackenzie, but I'm going to be living with you for the next two weeks because I'm part of a special project, that man said so, he's nice that man, he gave me this candy cane, I love candy canes, mmmmm this one's strawberry, I like strawberry second best, I like banana ones best of all, what are your names?" She looked up at Parvati's startled expression and at Goyle, who was looking totally shocked. She had probably said more words during those twenty seconds than he said in a year.

"My name's Parvati Patil," said Parvati, "and this is Gregory Goyle."

"Parvati Patil, that's a very pretty name, it's quite unusual isn't it, I always thought my name was unusual but I think yours is more unusual, why doesn't he say anything?" Zara pointed a finger at Goyle.

"He doesn't like talking very much," said Parvati. Zara's eyes grew wide in astonishment.

"Doesn't like talking, but talking the best thing in the world, I love talking, I'm always talking to people, lots of people say I talk too much, my teacher says I talk too much and lots of people in my class say I talk too much as well but I don't mind, one boy once said to me that I never shut up and it would be much better for the world if I did so I hit him, I don't like that boy, his name's Martin Jones, I don't like that name, I think mine's much more interesting, I got in trouble for hitting Martin because I hit him quite hard and made his nose bleed so he had to go and see the nurse and I had to go and see the headmaster and he told me I wasn't allowed to hit people and I told him that I hadn't wanted to hit him but he'd been nasty to me so I had to, and...."

It seemed to go on for hours. Zara simply did not seem to have an off button. She jabbered away continually for several minutes, only pausing every now and again to ask Parvati (she appeared to have given up on Goyle) questions such as, "Do you like pink or blue better?" and, "Do you have any brothers or sisters?" When Parvati told Zara she had a twin sister Zara shrieked with delight.

"Oh I HAVE to meet her, I've always wanted to see twins together, I've never met a twin before although my best friend Alexia said that her cousin's friend is a triplet, that means there's three children, that must be really confusing, do you look exactly like your twin?"

"Well not exactly, but we do look pretty similar," Parvati replied, already becoming tired of Zara and her constant questions. While Zara had been talking Mr Weasley had been handing out candy canes to the other children and assigning a pair to each child. The room was now full of noise. Each child appeared to be either telling or showing their new foster parents what they could do. None of the children seemed in the slightest concerned that they were to be looked after by a group of teenagers for the next fortnight. The children appeared to be divided up into two groups, with the noisy, older children on one side of the room while the younger, quieter children were all sitting on another side. The three oldest children, Zara, Louisa-May and Jimbo were all trying different tactics to get attention. Zara was still talking to Parvati constantly, refusing to stop for blood or money. Louisa-May, who was with Hermione and Pansy, was twirling around the room, dancing and singing as loud as she could, calling out every few minutes statements like,

"Look, look! I can do a turn! A full turn without falling over!" or, "That song's from a musical called Grease!" Hermione and Pansy were gazing open-mouthed at this little girl, who seemed to be desperate to get their attention. Jimbo was trying quite another way to get his foster parents', Seamus and Harry, to watch him. He was running manicially around the room, adding sound effects wherever possible, and was climbing on anything that wasn't moving. Harry and Seamus, far from standing back and watching as the others were doing, were chasing Jimbo round the room, trying to stop himself from either killing himself or killing someone else.

On the other side of the room, Lavender had Benedict, the smallest of all the children, in her arms. For some reason, Benedict would not stop crying. He howled continually despite what Blaise or Lavender tried. Lavender was now rocking him gently, but Benedict's cries continued to bounce off the stone walls. Ron was watching his child, Romin, with apprehension as Romin found a wax crayon and drew pictures on a piece of scrap parchment. Ron looked over at the pictures. One appeared to be of some kind of stick insect with wings.

"That's nice," he said, pointing to it. Romin beamed at him.

"That's my special friend," she explained. "Her name's Bobina but I call her Bob. She's a tooth fairy. Look, here are my other friends!" Romin took out a crumpled piece of paper. One appeared to have a large green hill on it and the other a purple blob with yellow flippers.

"This is Arnold, my elephant," Romin explained, pointing to the hill. "And this is Fredrika, my pet dragon." She pointed to the yellow flippers coming out from the side of 'Fredrika.' "These are his wings, you see?" Ron nodded, looking at Romin with a scared expression.

"Do erm...these friends live in your head, Romin?"

"Oh no!" she said, smiling at him. "They live with me, silly! They're here now! Look, Fred's over there, reading a book and Bob's flying over by the window!" Ron looked over at the completely empty windowsill.

"What about Arnold?" Romin gave him a disgusted look.

"Don't be stupid! An elephant wouldn't fit in here!" Ron sighed. Trying to follow an insane five-year-old's logic was very tiring.

"Where is he then?" Romin wandered over to the window and looked out of it.

"He's in that big pond, having a bath," she informed Ron, pointing to the lake. Ron looked out of the window. Unsurprisingly, all he could see was one of the giant squid's tentacles pointing up out of the dark water. Romin smiled. "Look, Arnold's shaking hands with the big octopus! See the hand coming out of his head shaking with one of the octopus' hands!" Inwardly, Ron groaned.

"It's called a trunk, Romin. It's his nose, not his hand."

"Don't be stupid!" Romin said again, glaring at Ron. "Elephants don't have long noses! They have two small bumps on each cheek which they use to smell things. The long thing on his face is his hand!" She stalked off back to the table, muttering to herself about how stupid Ron was. Ron looked over at Millicent, who was standing across the room, looking completely bored by the whole situation.

"You planning to help at all?" he said angrily, waving a hand in front of her face. Millicent grabbed it, twisted his arm to give him a Chinese burn and slammed him against the wall.

"No," she replied.

"Fair enough," Ron squeaked, wincing in pain as he felt her twist his arm still further. Millicent smiled and let him go. Ron crumpled to the floor, lay there for several seconds while he checked all his limbs were still working, and then he moved as far away from Millicent as possible.

Draco was looking as though he might throw up. Next to him, Danny was animatedly showing Neville 'Mr Zubbiwubbi Bear'.

"I've had him ever since I was a baby," he said quietly, showing Neville the toy. Neville stared at the teddy bear in amazement. He had never seen such a battered toy in his life. Half its stitching was coming undone. Stuffing was poking out in several parts. It had lost both its nose, one of its eyes and both its ears. The colour of it varied from small patches of light brown where it had escaped wear-and-tear to bright green where it had clearly fallen foul to a painting session. It had splashes of almost every other colour in the rainbow. Mr Zubbiwubbi Bear was wearing a red jacket that Danny appeared to have made out of cardboard.

"He's err...." Words appeared to have failed Neville. Unfortunately they had not failed Draco.

"Disgusting! I've seen more attractive corpses!"

Bad move. Benedict suddenly had a rival in the crying stakes as Danny burst into noisy sobs. Neville glared at Draco, although his hands were trembling.

"Ni..ni...nice one Dra..Drac...Draco," he said, trying to sound tough, although his shaking voice gave away his true emotions. Draco snorted.

"Not my fault the kid's a nutcase, is it? I mean, c'mon! Mr Zubbiwubbi Bear!" He snorted again, then swore at top volume as Danny kicked him in the nuts.

"Oh bloody hell! You little bastard!" The whole room went silent as Draco bent double, cursing as loud as he could. Zara was looking deeply interested, and was clearly trying to take in as many curses as she could remember. Benedict, scared by the noise, burst into even noisier tears. Danny, whose tears had begun to subside slightly, re-doubled his efforts and the room was filled with the sounds of two screaming children. Jimbo managed to squirm out of Seamus' headlock during this and was now running around the room, bellowing and screeching insanely as he did so. Declan, who so far had been quietly drawing at the table with Romin, now turned to his foster parents, who were Dean and Crabbe, and whined,

"I'm hungryyy! I want some food!"

"We eat in ten minutes, all right?" said Dean shortly.

"NO! I WANNA EAT NOW!" Declan opened his mouth and started screaming. His mouth opened so wide Dean could see the boy's tonsils.

"Look, Declan, if you'll just..." he tried to say, but Declan only screamed more.

"I WANT FOOD! I WANT A WHAM BAR!"

"A what?" said both Dean and Crabbe, looking confused.

"You should know, your parents were Muggles," mumbled Crabbe. He rarely spoke but when he did, he mumbled in an almost inaudible drone that was unbelievably annoying.

"I never ate Muggle sweets. My dad worked in a confectionary factory and told me such gruesome stories about how Muggle sweets are made I never touched them," Dean replied, shuddering.

"I WANT A WHAM BAR, AND I WANT ONE NOW!" yelled Declan, his face beginning to turn blue with the effort of screaming so much. He was completely ignoring Dean and Crabbe's conversation As far as he was concerned, the only thing that mattered right now was that he got his Wham bar.

"What the hell is a Wham bar?!" yelled Dean, getting extremely annoyed at Declan's constant yelling. At this, Declan dissolved into noisy tears.

"He...he...SHOUTED AT ME!" he bawled.

Mr Weasley surveyed the scene with a look of panic across his pale face. Benedict, Danny and now Declan were all screaming the place down. Zara was standing next to Draco, who was still swearing like a trooper. Romin was the only child behaving relativity normally, sitting quietly and drawing a large bonfire. She smiled with a strange grin plastered across her face, looked up at Ron and said,

"I like burning things!"

Ron, who was now looking panic-stricken, was muttering words under his breath that sounded vaguely like "Arsonist...the kid's a bloody arsonist...." A sudden rip in material made Mr Weasley whirl round to the window, where Jimbo was swinging happily from the remains of a curtain. Harry and Seamus were both shouting at him, but Jimbo's whoops and shrieks blocked out their voices completely. Louisa-May was adding to the noise level, by twirling madly around the room bellowing,

"FAME! I'M GONNA LIVE FOREVER! I'M GONNA... AHHH!" She had collided into the table where Romin was working. With a sickening crash, Louisa-May slammed against the table and landed in a heap on the floor. Paper, crayons, and Mr ZubbiWubbi Bear's stuffing went everywhere. Both Danny and Louisa-May looked at each other and started screaming. All the teenagers had now moved to one corner of the room, totally abandoning their children.

There was a sudden slam of the classroom door. Professor McGonagall stormed into the wrecked classroom.

"What on earth..." she said in a quiet yet deadly voice that her students knew and feared only too well, "is going on in here?" All of the children stopped screaming and looked fearfully up at her. Jimbo slid off the curtain and landed heavily on the floor. His face screwed up as though he were about to cry, but Professor McGonagall gave him such a look that he simply whimpered then fell silent. All of the students started talking at once.

"Well you see..."

"It's like this..."

"Professor..."

"It wasn't..."

"Stop!" shouted Professor McGonagall. "Miss Granger, perhaps you'd like to explain it?"

"Well you see Professor, we were given these Muggle children as part of a Muggle Studies experiment..." Hermione began, but was quickly cut short.

"Professor Dumbledore has explained this to me. I am aware that you were assigned a Muggle child in partners to take care of for a fortnight. What I am however not aware of is why you are letting these children run wild instead of properly caring for them. I have a feeling this may be more the teacher's fault than the students'," she fixed an annoyed stare on Mr Weasley who shrank back in his chair, "but whatever is going on in here, I want it to stop. Now." Professor McGonagall fixed a cold stare on the class, then swept out of the room.

A bell sounded in the corridor. Mr Weasley looked as though he was about to faint with happiness.

"Dinner," he murmured joyfully. "Right, take your children down to the great Hall to eat. I'll clean up here."

"Sir, whose table should they eat at?" asked Dean, who was eying Declan warily.

"There's a special table set out for all the children and their foster parents," replied Mr Weasley. "Now, off you go!"