Fred and George and the Toilers of Trouble (Year 1) ✔

Author Note: 100% Cotton

Chapter 24 is finished, and it ended on a cliffhanger.

I wanted to take a short pause here, after the chase scene, to share with you something personal about the origins of this series.

When I first developed the idea to write the first year of Fred and George at Hogwarts, it was early 2002 and I was trying to come up with the best gift idea for my first anniversary.  I was 23 years old, and all I had to go on was what my wife and I had agreed upon: not too expensive, and it should somehow be a traditional anniversary gift. For one year of marriage, the tradition was cotton.

Cotton?  What the crap am I going to get her? A t-shirt or something?

Then it hit me. I had been writing a handful of different stories for years, and I knew that she absolutely loved Harry Potter and was waiting impatiently for the release of the next book in the series. What if I wrote her a story in the Harry Potter universe, then had it printed on 100% cotton paper and bound at a bookbindery in town??!! It was perfect!

So, as you could expect, the decision was easy. The execution, however, took lots of hours. I had settled on Fred and George, because their characterizations in the books were the most similar to my personality.  Then I had to find time to write in secret, sneaking out of the bedroom in the middle of the night.  When I first sat down at my massive desktop computer, I started to imagine what Fred and George would have gotten into during their first year, knowing the hijinks that were currently ensuing. And this scene, this chapter, the one you just finished, was what I had envisioned!

I pictured the twins being separated, each facing a different foe, one giving chase on foot, trying out a new spell, the other soaring through the school on a broomstick, taking sharp turns and dodging obstacles. From there, I worked backwards. What would have gotten them into that mess? And who were they chasing? And why??

And here we are. It's 2017, and I'm sharing our story with the world for the first time. But don't let my ramblings get in the way of the adventure unfolding before us.

When we last left our heroes, George was trapped in the secret room at the top of the stairwell with Aruzula Darc, Fred had just captured Lexington Parsimonae in the vanishing step (with the help of Peeves the Poltergeist), and the answers you've been looking for were mere chapters away. . .