"Romeo: Bob

Juliet: Lee

Mercutio: Kelly

Nurse: Fred

Lady Capulet: Dan

Lady Montague: Erika"

The list went on for a while, culminating with "Lighting Crew: Usagi and George."

After a moment of stunned silence, most of them burst into an angry diatribe.

"I'm playing a romantic role opposite Bob the Brit-lover?" Lee was very incredulous.

"I don't WANT to be the Nurse, I'd rather be on lighting!" Fred near-shouted.

George was muttering angrily under his breath. "How dare he steal my part? I'll kill him, the bloody idiot…"

"I got a part and you didn't? That's not fair and all, Usa," Kelly was steaming mad on behalf of her friend.

Usagi managed to retain some sense of purpose. "Lee, shut up. You knew perfectly well who was auditioning for Romeo. Kelly, I really don't care, lighting sounds like fun and I'll have a whole lot less to memorize. Fred, George, I'm certain it was just a mistake, let's go talk to the director…" She dragged the twins over to the director, who promptly swapped their positions.

While the cast was going through their lines, Usagi and Fred were fooling around with the lights. Halfway through, the director came pounding up the carpeted stairs.

"Have you two got any idea what you're doing?" he demanded.

"Nope!" Usagi exclaimed cheerfully.

"None at all," Fred smiled.

"I didn't think so. I was heading out to pick up our seamstress and her stuff, as well as our set designer. I'm going to be bringing back our main lighting technician from during the school year to tell you two how to do everything."

"All right!" Fred and Usagi said.

"In the meantime, I'm leaving you two in charge. Just keep an eye on all them, I'll be back soon."

"Take your time!" Fred shouted after him, while Usagi was calling, "Okay! Tata!"

They looked at each other, and with a slightly evil smile, said, "In charge…"

~*~*~

None of the veteran drama club members had remembered ever having a rehearsal half as fun as the one that ensued. Usagi taught them all a new chant, which was really just her yelling out a random, dirty word and the rest of them shouting the assigned ending. At first, it was just in the same order ("Boo" completed by "bies" and then followed by the next one, and so on) but it ended up getting jumbled up and confusing.

Fred would shout, "Drop trou!" and all the boys and any girls wearing boxers would drop their pants or shorts to their ankles and walk around like that for a moment.

It was general insaneness, but that is what happened when Usagi and Fred were given power. Very little line-running was actually completed in the time frame that the director was gone, and he was rather vexed to find the entire cast and crew belting out the words to the song "Wayne Gretski" upon his return.

Needless to say, Usagi and Fred were never left in charge after that, but the cast would still shout, "Heyyyyyyy!" back whenever Usagi or Fred pumped their fist in the air, shouting the same at them.

~*~*~

The head lighting person was droning on and on and on at Usagi and Fred about their tasks as members of the lighting crew.

She, being an expert droner (one to rival Binns) did not notice that Fred and Usagi were having a sword fight with their wands underneath the table they were seated at, allegedly to examine the many codes and names for different light effects and how they would be used throughout the course of the play. When it came time for them to begin programming the light set-up for the play, however, it became apparent that the pair had acquired absolutely no information about lighting, and they were set to position the spotlights and other such truck.

Fred began strutting up and down on the catwalk, pretending to be a model. "And… pose. And POSE!"

Usagi, whipping out the camera she'd taken to bringing to rehearsals, snapped pictures as Fred struck increasingly more and more ludicrous positions. They'd somehow managed to obtain a dress, petticoats, blond curly wig and bonnet for the Weasley twin to wear. The majority of the cast members were on stage, rehearsing the ball scene, but only Bob the British lover was really paying any attention to the play; everyone else barely concentrated, casting furtive glances up to the catwalk, whispering and giggling behind their hands.

~*~*~*~

Two more weeks sped by; it had been determined that Fred and Usagi truly were no good at lighting at all, and someone had the foolish idea that Usagi might be useful with a hammer in hand ("Thank heavens for my wand," she'd muttered to Fred on numerous occasions when they were left alone to constructing the set). All five of the MM's had managed to pass the test for their driver's permit, and had nearly completed their driving hours.

As the five tripped in from their last driving times, permits in hand, an owl swooped in and dropped a letter on their heads, then stood aside while preening.

"What's this?" Kelly asked, snatching the message from her hair.

"It's for us," Fred said, looking at George and Usagi.

George grabbed the letter and opened it up, scanning it quickly. He paled. "Oh, God."

"What is it?" Usagi asked, trying to get the letter from George.

"It's Harry. He's been attacked by dementors. Mum wants Fred and me to get to the Order's hiding place right away… and Dumbledore thinks you'd be safer there as well, Usa. He says that he would understand if we brought Kelly and Lee, since they're visiting your house and all."

"But what about the play?" was Kelly's first thought.

"YES! I don't have to do the kissing scene with Bob!" Lee exclaimed at the same moment.

Usagi's expression changed, and she suddenly became very bossy. "You all go start packing right away. I need to talk to Mum and Dad, and send a reply. We need to get there as soon as we can." She didn't need to add the fact that they were in some serious danger if Voldemort was on the move. They all had more than one reason for the dark wizard to kill them.

~*~*~

After a tear-filled good-bye, Usagi followed the others to the meeting place. From there, someone would bring them to the Order's headquarters. That someone was Molly Weasley, accompanied by an unfamiliar woman (who was introduced as "Tonks.")

Fred and George were barely able to breathe when they found their mother had thrown herself upon them ("I was so worried you'd been hurt or killed or got into trouble…" … "But we did get into trouble, Mum." … "Yeah, we can drive now!"), but Tonks was able to pry Molly off and quickly escort the children to an empty space between numbers eleven and thirteen. They read the paper she gave them quickly, and then watched as it burst into flames, the ashes swept away on the wind.

Usagi and Kelly were shocked and indignant when, upon entering the house and greeted by a shrieking Hermione and Ginny and a grinning Ron, a portrait began yelling obscenities and insults at them.

"Oh, don't mind Mrs. Black," Ginny said with wry humor, noting the direction of their gaze. "She's not very happy with her son for letting us live here. I've got a feeling she wasn't very happy with her son before then, either."

The angry Mrs. Black continued shrieking at them as they tromped up the stairs, thumping their trunks behind them. When Ginny was certain that Molly and Tonks were out of earshot, she informed Fred and George that she didn't know what they'd been thinking, going off for so long without leaving her any extendible ears, she barely had the tiniest inkling of what had been going on, and Harry was so mad because he didn't know any more than they did, and would they please go in and try to cheer him up?

Fred and George just rolled their eyes at each other and dumped their trunks on their beds.

-----

I know it's been a terribly long time, and this chapter is pretty short and stopped in a really odd place, but I felt like writing more and I wanted to post this before I let myself just save it and forget about it for a few months (I'd been writing a couple paragraphs at a time).

:O) I'm back, kinda. I've got barrels of schoolwork, but my new school-year's promise to myself is to try to keep writing, whether it's fanfiction or original stuff.

I heart you all!

Chaos