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The number one unspoken rule in the Weasley household was, “Don't go poking around in the twins' stuff.”
Anyone who had even heard of Fred and George Weasley knew that their things were rife with prank items, unfinished inventions, and booby traps. It would be safer to walk into the Forbidden Forest alone at night and ask the centaurs for a ride than to mess around with the Weasley twins' belongings.
And yet that is exactly what Ginny was doing. She needed her boots back. When she'd been here earlier talking with the twins, she'd wisely worn her boots to protect herself from whatever might be in their room. It was best not to dwell on exactly why her shoes weren't on her feet when she left their room. Her mother would have asked why she didn't simply ask for her boots back, but she didn't trust her brothers not to prank them if she did that.
And...yes! There they were. Ginny picked them up and examined them. They didn't appear to be pranked, so she left, congratulating herself for not setting off any of the perils of the twins' room.
XXX
The fallout could have been much, much worse. She could have put those boots on to play Quidditch with her brothers, or de-gnome the garden, or any other family activity. Instead she was going to spend some time by herself in the orchard.
Nothing odd had happened for the first few minutes. She'd skipped through the trees, swung on a particularly low branch, and simply enjoying being truly alone for a rare moment.
Then she'd felt it. Something that could have been a stiff feather if she had time to think about it drew down the arch of her left foot.
Ginny cried, “Oh!” and instinctively picked her foot up, away from the sensation, before her mind kicked in. Nothing could have gotten through her boots. Maybe the lining for the sole had come loose, or something was stuck inside it. So she tried to pull it off.
It wouldn't come off.
At first she felt a bit foolish and clumsy for being unable to take off her boot. She couldn't figure out what she was doing wrong. But then she felt something very light and soft tease the tips of her toes on her other foot. That boot wouldn't come off either. From there it was easy to put two and two together.
“Those two...!” Ginny gasped, outraged, before her face broke out into a grin as a single finger on each foot began to softly stroke up and down and around her trapped feet.
Ginny giggled softly and lifted up one foot, then the other, then back again. She'd never thought of herself as being particularly feather ticklish, but the very light sensations on her feet were blowing her mind just a little.
She stumbled backward and fell unceremoniously on her behind as feathers softly brushed her toes. She curled them instinctively, but that only pushed them further into the boots. “Heeheeheeheehee! I'm gohohoing to kill Frehehehehed and eeeeeeeeheehee and Geohohohorge!”
She tried again to pull off the boots, but they remained stuck on her feet. Now that she was over her surprise, the tickling was kind of fun. Except that she had no idea if they would just keep tickling her until an adult could get them off of her. She tried to scoot back toward the house, but she didn't make much progress.
The tickling was slowly getting worse, with her toes being thoroughly feathered and fingers drawing up and down her arches. “Ahahahahahaha! Oh my Gohohohohohod! Oooooo, that tickles!”
Ginny's composure fell apart more and more as time passed. She'd never been consistently tickled this long before. It had always been short tickle bursts and fights with her brothers. This had to be almost two solid minutes of tickling with the promise of more to come. She helplessly waved her feet side to side and gave herself over to laughter. “AHAHAHAHAHA! OOHOHOHOHOHOHO!”
A finger was scratching on the ball of her right food, and it turned out to be a bad spot. The feathers had decided to explore in between her toes, and not matter how she wiggled or clenched, nothing hindered them. A stiff feather was brushing the outlines of her feet, tips of toes, sides of feet, heels, and all over again. “OH! Oh, not thehehere! AAIIIIEEEEE! NOHOHOHOHO!”
The tickling continued to intensify. It didn't dig in the way her brothers sometimes roughly scribbled at her feet. It remained that maddening feather-light tickling. But slowly the sensations stopped being creative, individual efforts and started to make sure that every nerve on her foot was being tickled at the same time. Also, the tickling was somehow becoming...more tickly? Or her feet were becoming more ticklish.
Ginny instinctively kicked and pedaled her feet. She rolled over onto her stomach, then onto her back again. She fruitlessly pounded her fists into the ground. Tears began to stream down her cheeks. “OOOOOHOHOHOHOHO! PLEEEEHEEHEEHEEHEESE! PLEEHEEHEEHEEHEASE!”
It felt like hours, but it probably wasn't. It still went on and on and on beyond the point she was sure it must stop. She fell in and out of silent laughter. Her struggles diminished as she grew tired, but the tickling still dominated her mind.
For just a moment, it got to the point where she couldn't stand it another second. She became desperate for the tickling to stop. “NO MORE! PLEEEEHEEHEEHEEHEASE! STAHAHAHAHAP!”
And right at that moment, it stopped.
She lay on the ground and giggled as she recovered from the experience. Then she cautiously began to move. The tickling didn't start again. This time when she tried to remove her boots, they came off easily.
Now that she could look at them better, she realized they weren't her normal boots. They were her old boots that she'd thrown out a few months ago. The twins must have gotten hold of them and used them for their experiments.
She carried the boots in her hand and walked barefoot back to the house.
XXX
That night Ginny sat on her bed, her knees to her chest and her chin on her knees, and stared at the boots she'd sat at the foot of her bed. It would be very easy to take the boots to her mother and explain the situation. It certainly wouldn't be the first time she'd carried pranked objects to her parents. Her mother or father would fix them, scold the twins, and life would go on. But something held her back.
Ginny actually liked being tickled. Having six older brothers meant that she had been tickled a lot through the years, although it was happening less and less often recently. It wasn't exactly a secret that she liked being tickled. She'd never stated otherwise, and she never got grumpy about it like Percy. But still, she knew that if she were to actually say so, her brothers would never let her live it down.
Finally, Ginny decided not to make a decision tonight. There would always be time to turn the boots over later.
XXX
Ginny thought about the boots a lot the next day. She would be going about a chore or a game or a conversation or a perilous quest to retrieve her normal boots from Fred and George's room when she'd suddenly remember the feather outlining her foot or the fingernails on the balls of her feet. Even thinking about the t-word made her squirm.
That night she told her family she was tired and went to her room early. She found herself in the same position as last night, staring at the boots. An idea had been...no pun intended...tickling the back of her mind all day. It was not a smart idea, she knew that. Too many things could go wrong. And what did it say about her that she would willingly step into that experience again?
Perhaps it was her Gryffindor daring. Perhaps it was the bad influence of growing up with Fred and George. Or perhaps it was something else. But she finally picked the boots up and firmly tied them on her feet.
For a few seconds Ginny felt sinking disappointment as nothing happened. Then she remembered that it took several minutes for the tickling to begin last time. There had been enough time for her to get a ways into the orchard. So she lay down on her back and waited.
The wait was almost worse than the tickling could ever be. She curled and uncurled her toes, folded her hands together and then laid them at her sides. Every second seemed to last a minute. What if the magic had been a one time use only? What if she was laying in bed with her boots on for nothing? What if she was about to be tickled any moment now?
Just as she began to relax a little bit, a fingernail stroked down her foot. Her mouth formed a silent “O” and her foot reflexively moved back a little bit. She grinned as another fingernail softly began on her other foot and thought, Here we go again.
Some part of her had thought she would have acclimatized to the experience now that she knew what was coming and had gone through it before. That wasn't the case. The tickling was just as electrifying and delightfully unbearable as the first time.
It also didn't follow the quite the same pattern. At one point her feet were assaulted by soft paintbrushes. A tiny one explored nooks and wrinkles in her feet she hadn't even known she'd had. One particularly nasty one found the incredibly ticklish spot under her big toe, and she softly squealed, “Ooooooo!” before she could stop herself. Larger brushes seemed to be painting masterpieces over her soles and even the tops of her feet.
In the orchard she'd squealed and laughed to her heart's content, and no one had heard her. When her brothers tickled her, it was an advantage to scream and laugh loudly, because one of her parents or other brothers could hear and rescue her if things got out of hand. In her room with most of her family just a wall away, it was imperative that she remain quiet. She buried her face in her pillow and almost smothered herself. It took all her willpower to suppress her laughter. Somehow, the need to keep this secret, the almost forbidden nature of it, made the whole experience more delicious.
Again the boots took her just to the edge of madness before stopping. She fell asleep very easily that night.
XXX
A couple of weeks passed, and Ginny found time to use the boots more days than not. Each time followed the same pattern. She would stare at them for a while, fear and anticipation rising inside of her while she pretended to debate whether she would actually go through with it. Then she would put the boots on and wait on tenterhooks for the tickling to start. The tickling was always intense, always thrilling, always fun, always pushed her right to her limits before stopping. Somehow it never grew old. She never got used to it.
She preferred to go out to the orchard where she was free to just ride the experience. Unfortunately, there often wasn't time in the day, and it would look suspicious if she went too often. So she would usually end up in her bedroom, burying her face in her pillow to hide her giggles.
This could have gone on indefinitely if the twins hadn't decided to take a break from their pranking career to turn into detectives.
The family was going to eat outside tonight. There weren't any guests at the Burrow yet, but it was a nice day, and everyone felt like doing something special. Ron and Percy were helping Mum set the table when Ginny put down the book she'd been reading, slipped on her boots that were by the door, and stepped outside.
She knew something wasn't right almost immediately. It wasn't until she was sitting at the table listening to her dad talk with her brothers, though, that she felt a soft tickle on her foot.
She gasped and gripped the table. How could this have happened? She always kept the tickle boots in her room. The ones by the door were her regular boots.
But there was no denying that right now fingers were gently tickling the soles of her feet.
“Here we are!” cried Ginny's mother. She, Ron, and Percy were carrying out the last of the food. “Now we can get started.”
Ginny smiled at her mother, but the smile was not the result of the food. The magic was toying with her pinky toe, and it was driving her crazy.
If she hadn't been being tickled silly, she probably would have excused herself to the house to wait out the magic. Instead, her brain seemed to have frozen, and she didn't dare to move.
Her family began digging into the meal. Ginny tried to help herself to some potatoes, but her hands were shaking, so she gave up on food. The fingers were focusing on a bad spot right in the middle of both her soles. She tried to cover one food with the other, but that obviously did nothing.
“The ministry's stance is that...”
“...won't leave me alone about homework...”
“...stop that!”
“Dear, could you please pass...”
Ginny pressed her mouth shut as hard as she could to avoid laughing. She was pretty sure her face was turning red. George was smirking at her. Her mother told her, “Eat up, Ginny, dear,” but no one else seemed to notice her.
The tickling was slowly getting worse, and Ginny let out a little giggle. Finally, she realized that there was no way she could sit the tickling out at the table. She jumped up and somehow forced her tickled feet to run into the house.
“Ginny? Ginny, what's wrong?” her mother called after her.
“We'll check on her, Mum,” Fred said, and she heard the twins coming after her.
She only made it a few steps into the door before she tripped and fell on the ground. She curled up into a ball, her feet wiggling and twitching from feather quills tickling the middles of her feet. “Eeeeheeheeheehee! Oh Gohohohohod, what...”
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”
Ginny looked up. The twins were grinning down at her.
“Dihihid you twohohohoho oOOOOOO!” she tried to ask.
They caught her meaning. It would have been hard not to.
“Well, you see, we had this wonderful plan to prank your boots that you left in our room so foolishly,” began Fred.
“Thahahahat wasn't myhyhy fahahahahault!”
“It was such a good prank, too,” George said wistfully.
“We can do it some other time, George. Anyway, we couldn't find them. And then we noticed that our tickle boots were gone, too.”
“At first we thought you'd taken them accidentally, but then we saw you wearing your boots without, shall we say, problems,”
Ginny knew she would have to process what they said later. She was catching most of it, but the tickling was going on and on and on. The boots were doing a real number on her toes right now. She helplessly covered her face. “Ahahahahahaha! Nohohohohot thehehehehere!”
Fred continued, “But you DID keep finding reasons to go off on your own. Went to bed early almost every night, spent so much time in the orchard...”
“And we heard you giggling and squealing when we passed by your room sometimes.”
“So you'd not only retrieved your own boots without giving us a chance to prank them, but also stolen our prototype and continued to USE it!”
“So we sneaked into your room and switched the tickle boots for your boots by the door while you were playing chess with Ron,” George finished proudly.
The boots had never gone into truly hard tickling before. It had always found ways to maximize her sensitivity to light tickling. Still, they had always managed to surprise her. And it was certainly surprising when what felt like hairbrushes began to “comb” her feet.”
Ginny howled. She'd never felt anything like it in her life. “AHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAAAAHAAHAHAHA! OOOOOOOO! OH GOD! GUHUHUHUHUYS!”
“Fred, go and tell Mum...”
Ginny didn't hear the rest of the sentence, but one of the twins left for a minute to go outside, then came back in, apparently having come up with a good enough excuse for the three's behavior to their parents.
Ginny twisted from side to side. “PLEHEHEHEHEASE! NOOOOOOHOHOHO! OHOHOHOHOH MYHYHY GOHOHOHOD!”
The finale came with the boots simulating vibrating patches on the most ticklish spots of her feet.
Ginny metaphorically went through the roof, so much so that her accidental magic shattered a nearby vase.
“MAHAHAHAKE IT STOHOHOHOHOP! STOHOHOHOHOP! PLEEEEHEHEHEHEASE! IHIHIHIHI'M TOOHOOHOOHOO TIHIHIHICKLIHIHISH! AAIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!”
And, as always, just when it reached the point of being completely unbearable, the tickling stopped.
“That was bloody brilliant!” cried Fred.
Ginny caught her breath on the floor while the twins high fived each other. She groaned good-naturedly and pulled off the boots.
“I don't believe you two sometimes,” she said, but there was no heat in it.
Fred and George each offered her a hand and pulled her up.
“I suppose that, in the end, we owe you. You gave us some really good information on how they work,” George said.
“The only thing we don't know is...”
“...Why did you keep them?”
Ginny blushed. After being tickled in front of them and learning that they'd figured out the rest of the story, she couldn't lie about it.
“I guess...well...I don't...completely HATE tickling...and it was kind of fun the first time the boots got me...so...”
Fred and George blinked, looked at each other, and then a devilish grin spread over both their faces.
“Why Ginny...”
“Dearest sister...”
“If you wanted us to tickle you...”
“YOU ONLY HAD TO ASK!”
And with that the three Weasley siblings collapsed into a giggling, squealing pile of tickles.
The End