twinfic update
Jul. 19th, 2004 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thrihyrneI posted the first half of January, but it's been awhile. Here's most of it, I think. ;) and can I just say how fun it is to write about the twins?? Why doesn't everybody, and not in a twincest way?? *shakes head in incomprehension*
V. January
“And next is Ron Weasley, Gryffindor’s newest Keeper! Hope you were practising over the holidays- oops, watch your step!”
Fred had chosen Lee Jordan to act as Master of Ceremonies given his well-honed abilities at keeping a crowd involved and commanding voice. Ron, sporting a rosy glow underneath his freckles, strutted a bit unsteadily down the makeshift catwalk the twins and Lee had transformed in one part of the Common Room.
“I’m too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hurts…” Right Said Fred crooned over the crowd, as Lee had also been put in charge of the music spells for the small gathering. On the bruising ride back to Hogwarts on the Knight Bus, Remus asked them if the seventh-years still engaged in a “Beginning of the End” party the night before their spring term began.
“No,” Fred said, his eyes lighting up in such a way that George knew meant one thing: he was planning. “But certainly if it was a Gryffindor tradition, it should be revived!”
“Oh no,” Ginny moaned as Fred shoved her over when the bus took a sickeningly sharp turn. “Mr. Lupin, why did you give him an idea like that?”
“Make room for George!”
“Ow! Stop pushing me!”
Remus had only smiled as he clutched the seat pole and said that he had fond memories from that time, and after being cooped up in Order headquarters for a month, they deserved it.
Fred and George had conferred through the trip and decided that a party was indeed in order. Now the seventh-years and a few other brave souls were taking their turn walking down the catwalk while the others stood to the sides, parchment and quills in hand to judge poise and ability not to take themselves too seriously. Katie Bell had embraced the celebration idea with gusto and transformed one of George’s juggling balls into a large, rotating disco ball which hovered in the corner. George, with some help from Towler and an old family recipe, had concocted a blood-red punch which burbled in a cauldron, a pink iridescent haze hovering over it.
“Boo, hiss!” Fred shouted up at Ron. “Too prissy! You get a 2.”
“I am not prissy, you twit!” Ron slurred back, and to prove his point he unfastened his robe until it fell around his shoes, stepped on it, and tugged his Got Quidditch? t-shirt over his head.
There was a gasp from a nearby cluster of sixth-years as Ron twirled the shirt around like a lasso. Lee whistled a cat-call and Fred and George applauded.
“You’re at least up to a 4, now!” George yelled, scribbling a large number four on his parchment and waving it at him. “But put your shirt back on. You’ll blind some of the first years!”
“Bloody hell!” Towler swore, patting his robes. “Where’s my flask, you no-good thieves? I know one of you stole it.”
“Just using the contents for comic relief, mate!” Fred replied, producing the flask but not returning it to Kenneth’s outstretched hand until he had poured some of the potent contents into his own goblet of punch. “It seems to be working, wouldn’t you say?” He wiggled an eyebrow at Ron.
“Our Keeper’s a keeper!” Angelina hooted, bumping hips with Alicia and raising her chalice in a toast.
Lee Jordan announced, “Ron Weasley, ladies and gentlemen! A round of applause!” Ron unsteadily pulled his shirt over his head as Harry and Hermione came through the portrait hole. Fred had, of course, put a silencing spell on the common room.
“Ronald Weasley!” Hermione exclaimed, looking shocked behind the stack of books in her arms.
“They made me do it,” Ron said apologetically, struggling back into his robes.
Hermione shoved the books at Harry, then stormed toward the upperclassmen. Lee had changed the music to another of his Muggle favorite bands, and the words all I learned at school was how to bend, not break the rules wafted through the room.
“Have you been drinking?!” she squeaked in fury. “I wasn’t even gone but an hour! And you a prefect!”
“No,” Ron mumbled, then comprehension hit him. “Bollocks, Fred! You spiked it, didn’t you?”
“It was George,” Fred answered, turning to his twin. “How could you?” he asked, smirking.
“Liar. You know it was Towel-head.”
“Me? The last thing I want to see is any of you out of your robes. All of those freckles.” Kenneth shuddered and took a hefty swig of punch.
“Enough,” Hermione seethed. “We are back at term.”
“It’s our last one!” Katie complained as she bouncing enthusiastically with Lee to the fast tune. “Loosen up, will you? Or is having fun now forbidden under Umbridge’s Educational Decree Number Fifty-Four?”
“She can shove her decrees in her pink-covered - ”
“George!” Hermione hissed. “There are first-years…”
“Who will, in all likelihood, need to have Obliviate spells cast on them to protect their innocent memories from the vision of seeing Ron without his shirt,” Fred joked.
“Piss off,” Ron said darkly.
“Fine.” Hermione looked at Angelina and Alicia who had joined Lee and Katie in a writhing, jumping circle, obviously happy, and her expression relaxed. “But if your spell isn’t strong enough and McGonagall comes up here, you’re on your own.”
“Oh please,” George said, rolling his eyes. “That was one of the first ones we learned to master, way before Hogwarts.”
“Think about it,” Fred suggested. “All of our family under one roof?” He grabbed Towler and George by the shoulders, and went to accompany their classmates.
“Baggy trousers! Baggy trousers!” Lee sang along as he hopped around, doing a zealous do-si-do with Angelina.
“Catchy song, Lee!” George said, linking elbows with Fred and performing a similar dance move with his brother. “Baggy trousers! Baggy trousers!”
***
A while later, out of breath and for the first time wishing that he had some pumpkin juice, George found himself distracted by the sixth-years, clustered around Vicky Frobisher. Thalia waved him over, and he left Fred and company dancing to another of Lee’s favourites.
“Thank you for the owl,” he said, noticing that her hair was shorter than it had been before Christmas. “It meant a lot. Dad’s okay. And yes, we’ve been working on new products. Just wait ‘til tomorrow!”
She smiled warmly at him.
“How were your hols?” he went on.
“Passable,” she replied, then pointed to Vicky. “Not as exciting as hers, though. Look at that!”
“Again?” Vicky feigned irritation, but she looked rather pleased as she swept up her robe and raised the hem of her shirt. At the base of her spine was an orange flower.
“It’s a tattoo!” Thalia exclaimed with a thrill in her voice. “Can you believe it?”
“Wicked,” George agreed. “What flower is that, though?”
“Tiger lily,” Vicky said, dropping her robe. “Lily’s my middle name. My sister and I snuck out to get them.”
“Sister?”
“Her parents sent her to a smaller school in London,” Thalia said.
“Oh,” George said, as though he understood the implications of that statement.
“Looking forward to Hogsmeade next month?” Thalia asked, tilting her head just a bit to the side as Vicky turned around to talk to the other sixth years.
“Definitely,” George said, quickly scanning for a wall, or chair, or anything to lean against. Wall. He nonchalantly put his hand out and planted it on the stone surface. “Must say that we didn’t get out much over Christmas. Say- Fred and I will have some business to do, but would you like to meet at the Three Broomsticks?”
“Oy!” Fred hollered from across the room. “Heart-breaker! Need you this way.”
Thalia made an odd amused expression, wrinkling her nose in the process. “Sure. He keeps you on a short leash, doesn’t he?”
George’s mind raced for a comeback. “Yeah, but I’m the keeper of the handcuffs.”
Her brown eyes widened. “I knew you two were close, but…”
“And I thought I had a twisted mind!” George winked. “Well, brotherly love and all that, gotta go.”
Thalia’s coughing laughter rang behind him George walked back over to the catwalk where Lee and Angelina and Towler were trying to show off dance moves. Fred was leaning back in a chair, his legs providing a tenuous fulcrum to his seat, feet resting on the makeshift runway.
“Have a seat,” Fred offered with a sweeping gesture of his arm. George sank into the chair, sticking out his legs in parallel to his twins’. “Pranking. Seriously. It’s been ages since we’ve done anything memorable.”
George mulled over the possibilities. “Filch?” he said hopefully. “Or maybe Mrs. Norris. We could enchant a bell with some kind of sticking charm and tie it to her tail.”
“Good concept, though perhaps too obvious,” Fred said, scratching his upper back with his wand before shoving it into his courderoys pocket. “Maybe some kind of unwashable ink we could put on her paws, and drop her outside of Filch’s office.”
George snickered. “Can you imagine the look on his face if he saw black pawprints all over his pristine hallways?”
Fred nodded in appreciation.
“Wait – I’ve got it,” George exclaimed. “That swamp idea you’ve got. We could give it a test run outside of the Slytherin common room.”
Fred mulled over the idea, steepling his fingers and placing them under his chin. “Excellent,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure we’ll need to get in touch with our friend Dung.”
“Let me try,” George said. He turned toward the back of the common room where Ron and Harry were playing chess, Hermione watching. “Oh Ronniekins?” he shouted, earning an irritated glare from his brother. “Can we borrow your darling Pig for a wee bit?”
“No. Bugger off!” Ron yelled back.
George turned back to Fred and shrugged, unsurprised.
“Worth a shot,” Fred agreed, dropping his feet to the floor with a loud thud. “Reckon it might be inventory time- what say we go up and see just how much we need before starting another successful term?”
“Fine with me. Dancing’s not really my thing, though the music’s not bad. “ Fred had levered out of his chair and extended a hand, pulling George up from his chair. “Jordan!” George’s voice carried over the small crowd. “Later! Brilliant music, mate!”
Lee smiled in acknowledgement, then continued his enthusiastic, though uncoordinated dancing as close to Angelina as she would allow.
George led the way from the disco light after waving to the assembly and Fred followed. They pounded their way up the staircase until they reached their room. Both brothers shucked off their robes, then George went to the locked cupboard that housed their more unique ingredients. Fred retrieved a red ledger book from below his bed. It snarled at him until he stuck his wand up its spine – rather perverse, George thought – and tickled it, at which point it fell open. He brought it over to the cabinet, quill in hand.
“Right,” Fred pronounced. “So. I think we should start off selling our Headless Hats as soon as possible while everyone still has their Christmas money. Do we have what we need to keep going with the rest of the Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes line?”
George worked the unlocking spell and the doors opened. There were a number of glass bottles on a couple of shelves, some making the wood underneath them buckle with weight, but mostly they were at least half-empty. Some remnant bits of withered bucksnort jostled together in one corner, and toward the back of the cabinet some dismal-looking toadstools had tried to make a colony on the bottom shelf and cowered against the light. A liquid of malevolent blue began rising against the confines of a glass decanter and some skittish moths flattened themselves against the inside door.
“Bloody hell,” George moaned. “This is hopeless. We’ve definitely got to do some buying, and fast, if we’re going to try out the portable swamp.” He shook his head as the miscreant moonshadow sloshed in its beaker, moving toward the end of its shelf. “Oy! Back with you,” George snarled, pushing the glass back against the wall.
“Time to talk to our friend Mundugus?” Fred prodded. “And how much do you think it’ll set us back?”
George gave the cabinet contents an experienced eye, then looked at his twin.
“Shouldn’t break the bank,” George admitted. “Especially if we sell a few hats.”
“That’s the spirit!” Fred said, slamming the ledger shut and walking over to his bed.
George pointed his wand at the cabinet doors, which shut and locked with a fair number of clicking sounds. “Talk to Towler?” George asked, tossing his wand on his bedside table and toeing off his shoes.
“Not yet. It’s only our first night back,” Fred reminded him, wrenching open his trunk and hauling his set of clothes up onto his bed. “Plenty of time for that. Besides, our Hogsmeade trip isn’t ‘til February. So we’ve got ages to draw up any official documents we might wish to present to the right shop-owner.”
George knelt in front of his trunk, emblazoned with a Chudley Cannons sticker. He heard Lee’s unmistakable three-knock rap on the door before bursting in. “Plenty of time,” he agreed, though he found himself thinking that there wouldn’t be enough hours to do all that he wished. They had stopped doing homework for the most part, which helped, and more than once George thought that McGonagall was keeping them there purely to spite Umbridge since they were barely passing their courses.
“Gents!” Lee enthused, Towler mere steps behind him.
The rest of the evening was a rehash of their holidays, yet another toast to their final term, and an atypically early bedtime.
George dreamed. He was sledding through Hogsmeade, capturing as many woolen hats off of passersby as he could. He tossed them back behind him into a sleigh, which he suddenly realized he was pulling. Fred was in it and had a whip, cracking it at his back, though it seemed to be miles away and never hit him. They slowed through a narrow alley, going past all of his professors. McGonagall. Snape. Lupin. Flitwick. Face after face, then there was no ground below him. He was falling down a cliff, falling, falling… he tried to grasp at anything, but there was nothing to hold onto. Then he was in a valley, brushing snow off of himself. Fred was nowhere to be seen. Thalia stood next to him. “Eat this,” she said, holding out a piece of chocolate.
“Okay,” George shrugged, reaching out toward her.
He started awake, sitting abruptly, his left hand clutching air.
“Shut it you git!” he heard, and was about to explain that he’d been dreaming, but realized that it was Fred, speaking in his sleep. George sank back into his bed, fumbled for his wand and said Silencio toward his curtains. He was back asleep in minutes.
*****
“SHE DID THAT TO YOU?”
Fred yelled a string of profanity so foul that even George winced. Lee simply shook his head in agreement, staring at the back of his hand.
“Someone’s got to get rid of her! I’m owling Dad. The Ministry has got to kick her Dark Arts arse out of this school, or I’ll do it!”
“The Ministry sent her, Fred,” Towler reminded him, handing Lee an open butterbeer since he was unable to unscrew the top himself. The words ‘I must not talk back’ were oozing blood which glistened brightly against his dark skin.
“Not helping, Towler,” George warned, quickly boiling some murtlap tentacles in an effort to recreate the salve that Harry had told Lee would help with the pain.
“I’ve got to go back,” Lee said thickly. “Four weeks of this.”
George had never before seen the expression of controlled rage now present on Lee’s face like an ill-fitting mask. Lee was one of the most naturally cheery people he had ever met, and seeing him like this made George furious.
“UNFORGIVABLE CURSES ARE TOO GOOD FOR HER!” Fred was still shouting, pacing in front of a window.
Towler came over to the cauldron and looked at the contents. “You should have stayed in potions,” he said appreciatively. “You don’t have to work at it like I do, and Merlin knows I could have used the company.”
Still stirring with one hand, George pulled open a drawer and fumbled through a chaotic pile of instruments and utensils until he found a strainer. “Thanks,” he said. “Can you get the pestle for me?”
They finished the solution and poured it into a bowl. As Lee let his hand soak, he began to look much more like his usual self, even joking that he was going to change the words next week to say ‘Lee Jordan, Announcer Extraordinaire.’
“It’s not as though she pays any attention to what I’m writing,” he said. “She’s too busy with other things and making those hideous noises to know what I’m doing. I would write ‘Umbridge should be sacked,’ but then I’d be stuck with it. Permanently.”
“Swamp! Slytherins! Tonight!”
George turned as Fred let out his last barrage. “Tonight?”
“Yes. Serious pranking. It’s the only thing to keep me from going to Umbridge’s office, knocking, and then hexing her from here to next week once I saw her fat face. Or next year, if I could.”
“You’d be expelled,” Towler observed, finishing off Lee’s butterbeer.
“Big loss, that,” Fred said, busying himself at the cabinet of ingredients.
“Right,” George echoed, actually knowing the elements required to make a sudden swamp, which included bogmyrtle gas and patina of grindylow gallbladder. Like most of their potential or actualized products, this one was Fred’s idea, though unlike most of them, it took an inordinate number of materials that were not inexpensive. Personally, George felt that they should have stuck with the instant pond concept, but Fred said it didn’t have enough pizzazz. Or something along those lines.
“Um, Fred,” he began, before getting cut off.
“We’ll improvise!” his twin continued.
“You’re a nutter.”
“Takes one to know one.”
Towler coughed behind them. “Care to get a move on?”
Not long after, the quartet of seventh-years was carrying a smoking cauldron and satchel of dry ingredients quietly down a staircase to a particular portrait not far from Professor Binn’s offices. There was a hidden passageway found behind the potentially gruesome picture of a maiden tied to a tree, a large black snake undulating in front of her, which led to the dungeons, right around the corner of the Slytherin common room, to be exact. If one knew to sing the first verse of the Slytherin House song of 1748, anyway.
They made their way outside the common room. Towler kept watch, putting one end of an extendable ear near Snape’s office. The twins pored over the cauldron, George handing Fred the ingredients in very particular succession. Lee kept asking questions until George told him he’d explain the process, but not right then.
“Go get Towler,” he said, keeping his voice low. “We’re almost ready.”
“If this works, every Slytherin who goes through here will look like they’ve gone for a nice dunk in the lake,” Fred said, cheered by the whole process. “The bottom of it.”
The group was reassembled, and George nodded to Fred. “You do the honours.”
“Gladly.” He strode over to a space a few paces from the door. “Gents, I’d move back a bit,” he stage whispered over his shoulder. He poured out something resembling a fat slug trail in a coiled thick pile.
“Not the right colour, Fred,” George said, shaking his head. “Improvise, bugger.”
“Now! Just add…” Fred walked quickly back to the group, now down the hall and near the fountain, ready to run. “Magic.” He aimed his wand, said something that sounded a lot like a frog ribbeting, and stood back.
The substance seethed, oozing out all over the floor. The horrible-smelling liquid began pooling, making a shallow lake inching its way up to them.
“Needs work,” Fred gasped as the odour hit him.
“Let’s go!” Lee shouted, and he stuck his wand in the unblinking stone eye of a fountain around the corner in the hallway. The snake unfurled, making an arch shape, and he tugged at it, opening the door. They ran through and up the corridor, Towler making sure the fountain-door was completely shut behind them. After staying quiet on the staircases, they erupted into laughter once they made their way into the Gryffindor common room, ignoring the Fat Lady’s admonitions that they were out far too late and shocking a fourth-year couple snogging by the fireplace.
“Brilliant!” Lee said, still laughing and leaning against their closed door, brushing a tear from his eye. “Can’t wait to see what kind of idiotic decree Umbridge will come up with for that one.”
“By order of the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, students are hereby banned from making the Slytherins look like the slimey gits they are.”
“Excellent, Towler!” George exclaimed.
“The above is in accordance with Educational Decree ‘My Arse is Grass’ when Dumbledore is reinstated.” Towler had opened the beverages cabinet and was rummaging around for glasses, but his voice still carried.
Fred hooted, hands clutched at his sides.
“Oh, mates.” Lee sighed, falling into his bed, throwing his bandaged hand up onto his forehead. “That was beautiful.”
There was a firewhiskey toast, the cauldron sequestered in a corner of their bathroom, then bed.
***
George was enjoying a very satisfying third helping of bacon at breakfast the next morning when the alert came.
“Filch and Mrs. Norris at ten o’clock. Looks furious,” Lee said matter-of-factly.
“High hell. Snape is right behind him,” Towler said much more apprehension. He was the only out of the four who still took potions, after all.
Fred merely reached over and took a scone from a paten. “And all of the Slytherins, while distressingly clean, do smell abominable.” He grinned, and tossed the roll to George, who caught it handily.
“You.” Filch’s hatred was almost physical, pulsing in his words, undecided on which twin to inflict his rage. Mrs. Norris hissed for emphasis while Fred and George blithely ignored them. “You. Did. That. Foul. Bog.”
“Messers Weasley,” Snape’s icy voice cut through the caretaker’s monosyllabic chanting. “A word?”
“Word about what?” Fred asked even as George stamped on his foot. It earned George a quick, furious backhand to the stomach under the table. He winced.
Snape’s robes swirled rancorously around him as he slammed his hands down on the table, staring at the twins. The rest of the Gryffindor table had grown quiet.
“Where were you last night?” His black eyes glinted.
“What time of night, Professor Snape?”
“Professor Snape!”
McGonagall’s voice was like sunshine in spring. With a hint of frost.
“Is something the matter?”
Snape whirled around. “I cannot prove it yet, but with every hair on my head I believe that it is your seventh-years who made the foul-smelling pond outside of the Slytherin common room.”
“Oh. Dear me,” she clucked, wrenching Snape’s arm into hers and escorting him to the faculty table. “Not them, I’m afraid.” She turned, gave them the most imperceptible of winks, then returned to the Potions Master. “Shamefully hopeless, the four of them. Except Kenneth Towler, perhaps.”
“He’ll pay for this,” Snape rumbled.
Towler blanched. “Why am I not a Hufflepuff?” he said, digging his fork through his eggs.
“Because you’re brave and loyal, Towel-head.” George threw an arm around his shoulders and shook him.
“In case you forgot, you spineless bastard,” Fred said mockingly, beginning to juggle some grapes.
“Fred Weasley!”
Hermione’s shrill voice carried down the table.
“Worse than mum,” George and Fred said together. Fred lobbed a grape at George, who caught it in his mouth.
There was a flash.
“Creevey!” George warned. “What did we tell you about having that blasted camera at breakfast?”
Colin thrust the camera under the table.
“School is useless,” Fred said.
“Too right,” George agreed.
Have I mentioned that there will be a soundtrack to go along with this monstrosity??
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-20 12:27 am (UTC)And, awww, you threw Hermione in for me. Sure, she's being all Prefecty and stuff, but inside you know she wants to throw Fred on the table and snog him senseless.
*blinks*
What?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-20 02:54 pm (UTC)You're looking for aggressive!Hermione and Fred? Very interesting. I think I may have to write Hermione/Ron first. We'll see. I'm feeling badly for not working on my more staid Tolkien stuff, too.
I'm so pitiful. ;)
Hmmmmm. Hermione and Fred kissing during the twins' 7th year? Don't know. In this story's universe, they know that Ron has his eye on her, and I don't know how disloyal I could make Fred. Plus I don't think he sees her that way. But maybe.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 04:23 am (UTC)Aw, I feel sorry for your Tolkien fans, since HP and my demands are monopolizing your attentions.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 03:32 pm (UTC)Yeah. My writing in that fandom has slowed to a trickle since the deadline for the Mithrils. But I still have a couple to complete. I think I maxxed out writing so much in 15 months.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-22 01:05 pm (UTC)<-- no idea what hobbits do.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-23 04:08 pm (UTC)When I get around to it. :P
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-23 09:14 pm (UTC)My computer is pitching a fit in the heat today, so I'm printing out the G/R story (the first one) and will finish the beta by hand then, when it's cooler (hopefully tonight), I'll input all the changes.
It will be done! Oh, yes, it will be done!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-23 11:47 pm (UTC)