Hermione asks questions.

"We had nothing to do with it," said Fred.

"We weren't even there," said George.

"Only heard about it afterwards."

"And saw the pictures."

"In the newspaper."

"The moving pictures."

"Of Tonks dropping her trousers."

"And playing with herself."

"She doesn't look very happy."

"Fred has one on his wall."

"So does George."

"If the two of you don't agree to help us," said Ginny, smiling sweetly, "I'm going to tell Tonks that you pranked her, and then she's going to get her **** on the pair of you. Is that clear?"

"We didn't do it."

"You can't prove a thing."

"Even if we had, we wouldn't admit it."

"And even if we admitted it, we wouldn't tell you who we were working for."

"We made a promise."

"A sexy promise."

"So there."

"Fine," said Ginny. "So you won't admit it was Romilda, Lavender and Parvati?"

"No," said Fred. "We won't admit it was Romilda, Lavender and Parvati."

"So you can just bugger off," said George.

"Okay. I'll just go and tell Tonks you slipped her what I suspect is a powerful mind-control syrup of some kind, based on the notes I found in your garbage, and let her figure out what to do next. I hope she doesn't turn you into frogs. I liked having brothers, even if they were bullies sometimes."

"Hold on," said Fred.

"Wait a moment," said George.

"You don't have to do that."

"Let's be reasonable."

"How did you know it was Romilda, Lavender and Parvati?"

"You just told her, you idiot."

"No I didn't. You just did."

"Did I? Bugger."

"They'll never sit on our faces now."

"I was looking forward to having Lavender sit on my face."

"I thought Parvati was sitting on your face."

"Was she? I'd rather have Lavender."

"You can have her. I don't mind."

"You two are tadpoles," said Ginny, "unless you do exactly what I say. Now, listen. I promised Tonks I'd get **** on the people who pranked her. You two are going to help me do that. What else do you have in your box of tricks?"

"Why?"

"I'm going to strip Romilda, Lavender and Parvati naked in front of the whole school. It's the only way to get Tonks off my back."

"But they were already stripped naked in front of the whole school. That's what started this whole thing."

"Well, I'm going to strip them even nakeder. Will you help me or not?"

"I guess we have ****."

"That's the spirit."

"I'm not sure about this," said Hermione, who was also there. "Can't we just throw pies in their faces or something?"

"Do you really think Tonks will be happy with that?" said Ginny, who had cracked open a wooden chest marked Top Secret Experiments - Do Not Touch and was happily picking through the contents. "After what they did to her, it has to be total squirmy remorseless public nude humiliation or nothing. I'm talking a no-holds-barred bare-bottom naked spanking and vibrator massage in front of her classmates, all the boys she likes and the national media, at the very least. Do you have anything in her which does that, boys?"

"Maybe one or two things."

"Have a look in the bottom."

"But what if they catch us," said Hermione, "and do the same thing to us before we can do it to them?"

"Don't be a scaredy-cat."

"I'm not a scaredy-cat. I just don't want to get a barred bottom spanking or whatever you said."

"We have to get them back. Have you forgotten what happened yesterday?"

"What happened yesterday?" said Fred.

"We don't need to talk about that," said Hermione.

"Oh, Tonks made us... well, we ended up running back to the dorm rooms naked. Again."

"Interesting," said George.

"And the Fat Lady wouldn't let us in. Again. She said she's sick of all these students running around with no clothes on."

"But it's not important," said Hermione.

"So she made us do jumping jacks before she let us in. And some Slytherins came along and laughed at us and took pictures."

"Pictures, you say," said Fred.

"The Slytherins have them," said George, thoughtfully.

"Always looking for pranks, the Slytherins."

"And they have embarrassing naked pictures of Hermione to trade."

"Hmm."

"It's really not important," said Hermione. "Can we have the practical jokes, please? If we're going to do this, let's do it quickly."

"Here," said Ginny, tossing her a little coloured pinwheel. "See if you can figure out what this does."

"Um," said George.

"Perhaps not that one," said Fred, as Hermione put the pinwheel to her lips and blew on it, making it twirl. She looked at them, puzzled. "Why not?"

The wind roared into the back room of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Curiously, it didn't seem to disturb anything expect for Hermione's clothes, which were snatched off her body and hurled out the nearest window, leaving her stark naked in front of Ginny, Fred and George. The latter, thinking quickly, had already grabbed a nearby camera.

"Eek!"

"Gosh. Now we won't need to talk to any Slytherins."