Guts and Glory - Trouble with Twins, Book 2

Saying Goodbye

Dragging Fred and George to the library was always a challenge. We preferred to just lay up in the common room to do our studying. Well, in truth, they would prefer not to do it at all, but they suffered through it to shut me up. I had absolutely no desire to be there either but I needed to grab a few books.

It was a nightmare. The place was packed full of students doing their last preparations. A few of them were in a right state, bursting into tears. Girls were huddled together in their little groups over individual books; there were boys falling asleep over the tables, drooling all over the library books. I secretly hoped we would have the chance to see Madam Pince chew them out and send them running out.

"Jamie, what are we doing here?" Fred asked, looking around with a terrified expression.

"Just getting a couple things," I squeezed past a Hufflepuff girl who's hair had doubled from its normal size before adding, ''Quickly."

I hurried around the bookshelves, searching for anything that looked like it could help. There was a Slytherin boy sleeping next to an opened book in the Reference Section. A quick check told us that the book was titled The Essential Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"Think he'll mind?" I quipped, less of a question and more of a joke.

"Who cares?" answered George. Agreeing, I carefully pulled the away and moved to go find a couple more.

After a little while longer I had a stack of books piled up in my arms that was almost too heavy to carry. We squeezed through the tables full of anxious students and I waltzed up to Pince's desk. She was less than thrilled at the idea of letting so many books leave her library but eventually gave in; I believed it was really only because a book had started to scream at a student behind us and she needed to handle the situation. We left in a hurry, glad to finally escape.

After leaving, we found Lee in the Great Hall. I proposed going back to the tree by the lake and everyone was in for that idea. Nobody was there this time; I double-checked the branches half expecting Cedric to leap down onto us. The four of us settled down around its trunk. I handed out a book to each of them and we started to skim through them. Lee and I worked together to find specific passages that helped us review everything from this term. Fred and George lazily flicked through the pages, occasionally calling out an irrelevant fact that didn't really help but was entertaining nonetheless. Once I could tell they were getting bored of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, I traded them the book about defensive and offensive spells, earning a much more excited look from both.

It was apparently too quiet for too long by their standards, and after giving ten minutes of attempted study, Fred challenged George to see who could get up the tree faster. They rushed to start jumping and decided no magic was allowed. At first Lee and I just sat watching curiously, but when they called to join, we gave in without a second thought. We jumped up and reached for the highest branches to grab hold off. Fred was naturally the highest up, though it wasn't a very tall tree. All of us managed to pull ourselves up onto a branch. We lounged against the trunk with our legs hanging down.

"See, Jamie, isn't this much better than reading from an old book by some witch or wizard who's been dead for hundreds of years?" Fred taunted from the other side of where Lee and I were.

"Of course it is, nobody likes reading them, but I'd rather not be sent packing because I can't tell the difference between Dittany and Fluxweed."

George shifted himself to face me.

"The way I see it, all that stuff is useless if you don't know how to have fun with it."

Leaning forward, I said, "Go on."