MISCHIEF MANAGED// FRED WEASLEY X READER

012. Prior Incantato

Fred's Disclaimer: The author of this story does not own Harry Potter and she knows that his chapter is terribly boring, so boring I nearly fell asleep during it. Anyways—

"Hang on, that's my wand," Harry's voice interjected suddenly. He approached from the other side of the field, walking side by side with Hermione and Ron. As if to make sure, he patted down his back pockets. "I've lost my wand." 

"Is this a confession?" Mr. Diggory snatched the wand from the stunned elf on the ground, waving it around in Harry's face. "Dropped it, did you? After performing the Dark Mark, huh?" 

"Come now, Amos," Mr. Weasley said with a tired expression on his face. "Do you honestly think Harry Potter would conjure the Dark Mark?" 

Mr. Diggory scratched his head sheepishly. "No. I suppose not." He muttered. "Got a bit carried away. Don't know what I'm saying." He handed Harry his wand back, who pocketed it quickly. 

"Ennerverate," Mr. Crouch said sharply, pointing his own wand at the small elf. 

"Winky?" Harry raised an eyebrow, shocked. "You don't think she—" 

"Of course not, Harry," Hermione looked between the older wizards, to which they didn't answer.

Winky stirred feebly, opening her great brown eyes and blinking several times in a bemused way. Watched by the silent wizards, she raised herself shakily into a sitting position.

She caught sight of Mr. Diggory's feet, and slowly, tremulously, raised her eyes to stare up into his face; then, more slowly still, she looked up into the sky. The floating skull reflected twice in her enormous, glassy eyes. She gave a gasp, looked wildly around the crowded clearing, and burst into terrified sobs.

"Elf!" said Mr. Diggory sternly. "Do you know who I am? I'm a member of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures!"

Winky's eyes went wide and her breath began to come out in sharp bursts.

"As you see, elf, the Dark Mark was conjured here a short while ago," said Mr. Diggory. "And you were discovered moments later, right beneath it! An explanation, if you please!"

"I - I - I is not doing it, sir!" She gasped. "I is not knowing how, sir!"

"You were found with a wand in your hand!" barked Mr. Diggory, brandishing it in front of her. "So," said Mr. Diggory, his eyes hardening as he turned to look at Winky again, cowering at his feet. "You found this wand, eh, elf? And you picked it up and thought you'd have some fun with it, did you?"

"I is not doing magic with it, sir!" squealed Winky, tears streaming down the sides of her squashed and bulbous nose. "I is. . . I is. . . I is just picking it up, sir! i is not making the Dark Mark, sir, i is not knowing how!"

"It wasn't her!" said Hermione. She looked very nervous, speaking up in front of all these Ministry wizards, yet determined all the same. 

"Winky's got a squeaky little voice, and the voice we heard doing the incantation was much deeper!" Ginny interrupted, glancing at Fred and George for support. "It didn't sound anything like Winky, did it?"

"No," said Fred, shaking his head. "It definitely didn't sound like an elf." 

"Yeah, it was a human voice," added George.

"Well, we'll soon see," growled Mr. Diggory, looking unimpressed. "There's a simple way of discovering the last spell a wand performed, elf, did you know that?"

Winky trembled and shook her head frantically, her ears flapping, as Mr. Diggory raised his own wand again and placed it tip to tip with Harry's.

"Prior Incantato!" roared Mr. Diggory.

 Hermione and Ginny let out identical gasps, horrified, as a gigantic serpent-tongued skull erupted from the point where the two wands met, but it was a mere shadow of the green skull high above them; it looked as though it were made of thick gray smoke: the ghost of a spell.

"Deletrius!" Mr. Diggory shouted, and the smoky skull vanished in a wisp of smoke.

"So," said Mr. Diggory with a kind of savage triumph, looking down upon Winky, who was still shaking convulsively.

"I is not doing it!" she squealed, her eyes rolling in terror. "I is not, I is not, I is not knowing how! I is a good elf, I isn't using wands, I isn't knowing how!"

"You've been caught red-handed, elf!" Mr. Diggory roared. "Caught with the guilty wand in your hand!"

"Amos," said Mr. Weasley loudly, "think about it. . . precious few wizards know how to do that spell. . . . Where would she have learned it?"

"Perhaps Amos is suggesting," said Mr. Crouch, cold anger in every syllable, "that I routinely teach my servants to conjure the Dark Mark?"

There was a deeply unpleasant silence. Amos Diggory looked horrified. "Mr. Crouch.. . not. . . not at all.

"You have now come very close to accusing the two people in this clearing who are least likely to conjure that Mark!" barked Mr. Crouch. "Harry Potter - and myself. I suppose you are familiar with the boy's story, Amos?"

"Of course - everyone knows -" muttered Mr. Diggory, looking highly discomforted.

"And I trust you remember the many proofs I have given, over a long career, that I despise and detest the Dark Arts and those who practice them?" Mr. Crouch shouted, his eyes bulging again.

"Mr. Crouch, I - I never suggested you had anything to do with it!" Amos Diggory muttered again, now reddening behind his scrubby brown beard.

"If you accuse my elf, you accuse me, Diggory!" shouted Mr. Crouch. "Where else would she have learned to conjure it?"

"She - she might've picked it up anywhere -"

"This is so dumb," Fred whispered in my ear, tapping his foot. "It's obvious someone else is trying to frame Winky," he shook his head. 

I nodded in agreement. 

"Precisely, Amos," said Mr. Weasley. "She might have picked it up anywhere.. . . Winky?" he said kindly, turning to the elf, but she flinched as though he too was shouting at her. "Where exactly did you find Harry's wand?"

Winky was twisting the hem of her tea towel so violently that it was fraying beneath her fingers.

"I - I is finding it. . . finding it there, sir. . . ." she whispered, "there . . . in the trees, sir.

"You see, Amos?" said Mr. Weasley. "Whoever conjured the Mark could have Disapparated right after they'd done it, leaving Harry's wand behind. A clever thing to do, not using their own wand, which could have betrayed them. And Winky here had the misfortune to come across the wand moments later and pick it up."

"But then, she'd have been only a few feet away from the real culprit!" said Mr. Diggory impatiently. "Elf? Did you see anyone?"

Winky began to tremble worse than ever. Her giant eyes flickered from Mr. Diggory, to Ludo Bagman, and onto Mr. Crouch. Then she gulped and said, "I is seeing no one, sir. . . no one. ." 

Her eyes remained fixed on Mr. Crouch in such a way that had everyone concerned for her sanity. Amos, of course was only concerned for finding out who conjured the dumb mark. 

She blinked twice, tugging rapidly at her ears. 

Crouch's eyes were darting around the field as if he expected someone to leap out at any time without warning. He avoided eye-contact with his elf. 

The whole thing just seemed off.