the muggle next door | f.w. golden trio era

↳ 4.21

exodus pt. 1

April 21st, 1996

THE WEASLEY TWINS had planned their escape down to the last iota, and they were waiting for a sign from the universe to execute them. The sign finally came in the form of their red headed sister, strutting in on the last day of Easter break.

Ginny placed one hand on each of her brothers' shoulder, "You seem awfully quiet this holiday. Planning something, aren't you?"

"Now why would you think that, Gin?" Fred asked innocently.

"Weird accusation."

"Very weird, indeed."

"Fine," Ginny shrugged, "Harry needs to talk to Snuffles. D'you have any idea how to make that happen?"

The two boys' glistening eyes met and they beamed mischievously.

Barely two hours later, they found the Golden Trio talking over career information leaflets in the Common Room and joined them.

"Hey. Ginny's had a word with us about you," said Fred to Harry, stretching out his legs on the table in front of them and causing several booklets on careers with the Ministry of Magic to slide off onto the floor. "She says you need to talk to Sirius?"

"What?" said Hermione sharply, freezing with her hand halfway toward picking up make a bang at the department of magical accidents and catastrophes.

"Yeah..." said Harry, trying to sound casual, "Yeah, I thought I'd like—"

"Don't be so ridiculous," said Hermione, straightening up and looking at him as though she could not believe her eyes. "With Umbridge groping around in the fires and frisking all the owls?"

"Well, we think we can find a way around that," said George, stretching and smiling. "It's a simple matter of causing a diversion. Now, you might have noticed that we have been rather quiet on the mayhem front during the Easter holidays?"

"What was the point, we asked ourselves, of disrupting leisure time?" continued Fred. "No point at all, we answered ourselves. And of course, we'd have messed up people's studying too, which would be the very last thing we'd want to do."

He gave Hermione a sanctimonious little nod.

She looked rather taken aback by this thoughtfulness.

"But it's business as usual from tomorrow," Fred continued briskly. "And if we're going to be causing a bit of uproar, why not do it so that Harry can have his chat with Sirius?"

"Yes, but still," said Hermione with an air of explaining something very simple to somebody very obtuse, "Even if you do cause a diversion, how is Harry supposed to talk to him?"

"Umbridge's office," said Harry quietly.

He had been thinking about it for a fortnight and could think of no alternative; Umbridge herself had told him that the only fire that was not being watched was her own.

"Are— you— insane?" said Hermione in a hushed voice.

Ron had lowered his leaflet on jobs in the cultivated fungus trade and was watching the conversation warily.