Chapter 29. How About... We Faint Too
A faint stench still hung in the compartment, but it was no longer as unbearable as at the start.
Outside the compartment, however, the once lively carriage was deathly silent, an unsettling hush.
One after the other, Fred and George squeezed out of the case, exchanged looks, and didn't know what to say.
"Don't tell me you were right, George?" Duncan said. "We might really get the chance to do advanced studies in Azkaban..."
"N—no, surely not?" said George in disbelief. "Our enhanced Dungbombs aren't that powerful, are they?"
"Let's go look."
Duncan stepped to the door and carefully pushed it open, and the sight before them was quite spectacular.
Students lay sprawled all over the floor, piled and tangled together, their features contorted into ghastly expressions.
It was as if some dreadful monster had rampaged through moments ago, felling every student in an instant.
"Merlin's beard..." Fred said, feelings decidedly mixed at the sight.
Though it was an accident, this was indeed the most successful and large-scale prank they had ever pulled.
Hermione's face changed, her pale lips trembling uncontrollably.
She was only a newcomer to the wizarding world, not yet enrolled, and had never faced such a scene.
She hurriedly bent down and, using the first-aid knowledge she had learnt before, quickly checked the students' vital signs.
A moment later, Hermione let out a breath, raised her head, and said, "They're alive, just unconscious."
"Hermione, it's a prank item, not a murder weapon," Fred said hastily.
"Not that it makes much difference," said Duncan. "Have you thought about what Mrs Weasley will do when she finds out?"
"And look over there."
Duncan pointed not far away, where a figure they knew well was clinging to the tightly shut carriage door.
Percy, in school uniform, was half-kneeling with both hands clawing at the door, his face full of regret and unwillingness.
"Even a Prefect got taken out by your Dungbomb."
Fred and George exchanged a look, pulled long faces, and said, "Mum will probably send us a Howler a minute, and when the holidays come she'll arrange for us to move into well-fitting graves. Duncan, remember to bring flowers for us then. We like bright colours."
Duncan knew the twins liked to talk nonsense when they were nervous to steady themselves, so he paid it no mind.
Hermione, however, looked at them with sympathy and asked, "Is your mum really that frightening?"
"Put it this way, Hermione," said Fred mournfully. "Compared with Mum, dragons are mild little babies. When she's angry it's lightning and thunder, the earth trembles, as if the end of the world has come!"
"Say....." Neville, who had been shrinking at the back, spoke up suddenly. "Will we be expelled from school?"
Though it had nothing to do with Neville, his tone showed he had already counted himself as one of the culprits in the train stench case.
Hermione froze at his words; she had not considered that.
Could the magical life she had longed for end before it even began?
Fred's mouth, too, stayed open for a long moment as his eyes swept over the "corpses" on the floor.
An ominous feeling crept into his heart; perhaps what Neville said really could happen...
If they were expelled because of this, Mrs Weasley really might go and prepare graves for them.
Thinking along these lines, Fred sighed.
If only they had stored the gadgets properly to begin with, none of this trouble would have happened.
"Don't worry, none of this has anything to do with you," Fred said.
George understood what Fred meant, and added, "Once we get to school, we'll go and admit our mistake."
"The culprit's still in my pocket," said Duncan.
At his words, the Niffler curled its head in even further at the bottom of his pocket, balling itself up and doing its utmost to erase its presence, afraid of being yanked out for a beating.
"Don't be hasty, you two."
Duncan frowned, thought for a moment, and proposed, "How about... we faint too?"
"What?" Fred and the others said in unison, their gazes fixing on Duncan.
Duncan said, "So long as everyone is out cold, the professors won't suspect us."
"But... Duncan, aren't you forgetting something," Fred reminded him. "We talked in the corridor earlier; someone's bound to have heard us."
"Once they wake up, the professors will know the truth," said George, raising a hand to point to the side, where Malfoy, Goyle and Crabbe were neatly stacked, Malfoy at the bottom. "And then there are those three. They'll never let us off. Don't even mention keeping quiet—if they don't exaggerate our crimes it'll be divine mercy."
"I've a way to make them forget," said Duncan. "I only hope everyone from this carriage is here. If a few slipped out and know what happened, we're in for it."
"What are you planning to do?" Fred asked curiously.
"Spray this on their faces and they'll forget a stretch of memory," Duncan said, taking out his little spray bottle and tossing it to Fred. "We only need them to forget the few minutes before they blacked out, so one spray is enough. Make sure you don't overdo it—if you turn them into idiots, things will be even worse. Hermione, make sure you supervise them!"
"Got it."
Fred, George and Hermione understood the gravity of the matter and nodded solemnly.
"Right. You lot get on with it here; I'll go and prepare something else," Duncan said to the group, then returned to the case.
When he came out again, a strip-shaped creature lay on his shoulder, its coat sleek and glossy black, exceedingly handsome to look at.
"What's that?" asked Hermione.
They had combed through Duncan's case earlier and had seen nothing like it.
"Confounding Weasel," said Duncan. "An extremely mysterious magical creature distributed in Canada, the United States and Britain. Few have seen them to date, but they're popular in academic circles, because some scholars who have seen them say the mist they spray has a foul stench and can render people unconscious or briefly erase people's memories, preventing predators from remembering their range."
"At its hottest, there were crowds of animal researchers active year-round on the Canadian prairies, all wanting to see them with their own eyes."
"Even that sort of creature is in your case?" Hermione's tone carried undisguised shock.
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