Wisdom and Victory {Fred Weasley}

Chapter 20

Some wholesome Fred moments :)

There were two months before the Hufflepuff-Slytherin match, and then two weeks before Victoria played again, and then NEWTs. So needless to say, between Quidditch practice twice a week, Prefect patrols with her mother, and Dumbledore's Army weekly, Victoria stayed in the library until it closed, revising long into the evening until she was forced to retreat to the common room, where she would surely not be able to focus.

Fred, unfortunately, had taken the brunt of this. He and his brother 'didn't believe in revision', didn't have quidditch practice, and thus only had Dumbledore's army. And now they were doing patronuses, so they were reasonably advanced anyway. His focus had been on selling the practical jokes he'd been working on all year to innocent lower years. Fortunately for them, this meant that once the ickle firsties had gone to bed, they had roughly an hour or so to catch up. This was often interrupted by Angelina and Alicia, and Lee and George, but company was company, and Victoria wouldn't want to spend it with anyone else.

"Why do you revise, Vicky?" asked Fred one Tuesday evening while she skimmed her potions textbook from where she sat next to him.

"So I get good NEWT results." She looked up and saw both he and George were frowning.

"But you're clever," said Lee as he crossed something out on his transfiguration essay.

"It's a personal achievement thing," she said eventually. "How clever can I get if I put the work in?"

"Oh, like quidditch," said George.

"Exactly like quidditch," said Victoria, turning back to her textbook.

Angelina let out a heavy sigh as she finished her own foot long essay, rolling it up and leaning back into the sofa. "No fair," hissed Alicia, "What've you written?"

"I wrote big," admitted Angelina, reaching over to her stack of parchment. "Now for the battle plan against Ravenclaw."

"I'm sure Vicky wouldn't mind knocking your keeper out for you," said George, who had now propped his feet up on Lee's hunched back. Victoria snorted from behind her book.

"What did you write?" Lee asked her. "I saw you doing it last week, you used two rolls of parchment!"

"Oh, I linked it into when we did conjuring at the start of the year," she said nonchalantly as she turned the page to read up on the uses of billywigs. "Conjured objects come from non-being, vanished objects go into non-being. In other words, matter isn't constant, which coincides nicely with Malgven's theory of equilibrium."

Alicia jumped as Angelina hastily snatched her essay up. "Say that again, but slower," she said, quill poised.

"Who in Merlin's name is Malgven?" Fred asked George, making her laugh.

"Only responsible for a third of the sixth year course," she said, before turning back to the people who actually wanted to do well in their NEWTs.

*****

  Victoria ushered students out the way as her mother guided Trelawny away from Umbitch. Never had Minerva McGonagall been fond of Sybil Trelawny, nor her wishy-washy tea leaves, but her mother - despite the beliefs of many - did have a heart.

"May I introduce you?" said Dumbledore, still talking about the newly appointed Divination teacher. Victoria craned her neck to see a centaur coming through the front doors. And the look on Umbitch's face...

She let out a loud laugh at the toad like woman, only to be sent a glare. She shrunk down back behind the other students who had turned to look at her, hot-faced.

"What are you laughing at?" hissed Fred, who had been reluctantly testing her on Herbology over dinner.

"Look at her face!" she hissed between giggles.

"Come on," he said, grinning and tugging at her hand. "Let's go before she turns us to stone."

*****

Victoria sat with the rest of the moping Gryffindors in the common room, still too sad and disappointed to do any revision that night. Instead she sat in their usual sofas, with Fred's arm around her shoulders, as Alicia and Lee threw scraps of parchment at each other with their wands. "Well, maybe-" Angelina began again, only to see George shaking his head. Reluctantly, she fell quiet once more.

"I'm going to be expelled," whispered Victoria, sounding horrified with herself.

"Don't be silly," said Angelina reassuringly. "None of us were caught."

"That's why we're sat here," added Fred.

"So you've forgotten, then, about the list of names in that room," said Victoria. In the firelight, her friends' faces paled. They'd spent the evening laughing as they conjured patronuses, and Victoria had been delighted when she finally produced a galloping mare that swooped and dived around the room. That was, until the house elf had come and warned them Umbitch was coming.

The portrait to the common room opened. There were only a few other students milling around now, mainly those from DA. Harry stepped through, alarmed that so many people were watching him. "Well don't beat about the puffapod," said Fred. It seemed, like Victoria, everyone else was holding their breath, waiting for news.

"Dumbledore's gone."

*****

The news had shot around the school, and while many were shocked or down-trodden, Victoria didn't let it affect her. Yes, the school was now prone to Death Eater attacks, but her mother was a big enough stressball without her interfering. Instead she ploughed through with her revision, somewhat grateful she now had an extra evening to do Defence Against the Dark Arts revision, which had quickly become her worst subject.

Fred and George, too had taken their efforts to a whole new level, and a few days after Dumbledore's departure, Victoria had her sides aching with laughter as she laughed heartily in her Arithmancy class. Umbitch had arrived - as she had in Charms that morning - to rid the classroom of the fireworks that were swooping around. She wasn't sure how Umbitch hadn't figured it out yet, but all you had to do was conjure a bit of water to put them out. But Victoria wasn't going to say anything.

She was just leaving the library for dinner, book on common defensive spells in hand, when Fred came running round the corner, almost crashing into her. "What've you done?" she asked, raising her eyebrows and smiling.

"Knew I'd find you here." He glanced around for a professor, before kissing her messily on the cheek. "And nothing, yet. Just wanted to say goodbye."

"Yet?" asked Victoria as they set off at a brisk pace. She noted that he was not leading her to a dinner hall. "You've not been expelled, have you? You know that goes on your permanent record."

"Watch," he said with a wink. She stood to the side of the empty corridor, crossing her arms as he jogged off down the corridor. George appeared moments later, carrying a small box that he held out, looking like he was going to drop it.

The bell rang, signalling the start of dinner. Students poured from their common rooms and the grounds and wherever else, into the corridor. She stood where she was, seeing a splodge of pink in the centre of the crowds. There was a bang and a jet of red sparks from round the corner.

George threw the box aside, and in another pop, the most-part of the corridor had turned itself into a stinking swamp. There were shrieks and yells and the clear warcry of Umbitch as she tore after the twins, covered in stink sap.

Fortunately, Victoria had escaped the splattering, having been well-positioned by Fred. She followed them at a brisk trot, ponytail bouncing. It seemed as though Fred and George had been cornered by Umbitch and Flich, but they had a faint glint in their eye. Fifteen minutes later, and the two were flying off into the distance, with Peeves saluting their shrinking silhouettes.