Flame || F. WEASLEY

Chapter 6 - The Twins

"Amelia!" I turn at the sound of my name.

Melissa Greene jogs up to me, a smile on her face. One of the only Gryffindors I really truly know, I'm glad she's the one to find me.

"Hey," I greet. 

"What are you doing here?"

My cheeks flush. "Oh, uh-"

The portrait swings open, revealing two heads grinning at us.

"There she is!" Fred grins.

"So glad you could make it, Williams," George says.

Melissa raises an eyebrow at me. I give her a sheepish smile and shrug. The twins beckon me through the portrait hole with Melissa trailing behind with a bemused expression on her face. She waves goodbye to me before heading up to her dorm. I can see Hermione sitting on the chaise in front of the fireplace. Harry and Ron are bent over a game of wizard chess and a few other Gryffindors I recognize as scattered around the room.

Angelina Johnson, the chaser on Gryffindor's Quidditch team, eyes me up. I fight the original to either stick my tongue out at her or cower.

Fred and George lead me to a door set in a shadowy alcove at the edge of the common room.

"Before we show you what's in here," Fred starts.

"You must swear to keep it a secret," George finishes. They both look deadly serious, though mischief still dances in their eyes. I have to crane my head up to look at them. I'm certainly not short but they've shot up over the past couple of years.

A lot of people can't tell the two apart. I certainly couldn't our first year. But soon I learned their mannerisms, like how Fred stands with his chest slightly puffed out and how he's quicker to rash decisions. George has a more relaxed posture and is the impulse control to his brother.

I pretend to think about what they said before smiling and placing a hand over my heart. I make an X in the air with my free hand.

"I swear."

With that, they swing open the door and usher me through.

It's a bathroom. Or it once was.

The porcelain of the sinks is cracked and dust has settled on a lot of the fixtures. The mirrors are shattered and our reflections are fragmented as I take in the chaos. Cauldrons and vials hold strange bubbling liquids. There are scorch marks on the floors and I don't even know what stuck to the ceiling. 

Stacks of boxes full of packaged... things line the edge of the bathroom. Something clicks in my mind. The twins have been talking about starting their own joke store for years. That's why they asked for help perfecting their pranks.

"What is this?" I breathe. The twins grin.

"Welcome to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes," Fred says.

"The greatest joke shop of all time," George says.

I spin in a slow circle, taking it all in. "How long have you guys been working on this?"

Fred rubs a hand across the back of his neck. "A while."

"It's incredible."

"Brilliant."

George dug through some boxes muttering to himself while Fred leaned against one of the porcelain sinks, a lazy smile on his face.

"Will you really open a joke shop?" I ask, reaching into a random box and pulling out a small bottle filled with swirling smoke. Small electric charges shot out to scorch the glass. They make my grin widen.

I place it back gently and look up at Fred. His smile has faded and for once in my life, I'm staring an angry Fred Weasley in the face.

"What?" I ask, my smile dropping.

"We bet Ludo Bagman our life savings over the Quidditch World Cup. We won, of course, but the old git paid us with leprechaun gold. We lost it all."

I look to George, who's stopped digging through the boxes. He frowns down at his own hands.

"I'm sorry."

Fred shakes away the anger. "But we have a plan to get the money we need. That's where you come in."

I do not like the sound of this. "I thought you said this was a prank."

He lifts a shoulder. "You could call it that."

"Found it!" George says. He's holding a small bottle in his hand.

"What is going on?"

The twins grin at each other.

...

It takes them all of five minutes to explain their plan to me.

"Absolutely not," I say, "I'm not helping with this disastrous scheme of yours."

"Please, Williams, you're the best student at transfiguration here. If anyone can help us, it's you."

"You want me to help you concoct a potion that will allow you to get past Dumbledore's age line and enter your names in the Goblet. So you can compete in a tournament that could kill you, just for the money."

Fred and George look at each other and shrug. 

"Yeah, you've got it," Fred says. George has remained relatively silent and I know that this was Fred's idea, but George wasn't putting a stop to it.

"No way."

"Amelia." The way he says my name startles me. I'm always Williams, never Amelia or Ames. "We wouldn't be asking you if there was anyone else who could do it."

Butterflies writhe in my stomach as he pouts slightly, his eyes wide and warm. George looks amused at his performance but doesn't say anything. He won't coax me into doing it. I never quite could understand why I liked Fred. He was more willing to push boundaries, to take the risk, and make people uncomfortable.

George was more like me. Reserved, quiet, better at reading a room, and the emotions floating there. Perhaps that was why. We were too similar.

I screw up my nose and pinch the bridge of it. This was not how I'd planned for my night to go.

"Fine! But only if you help me with something."

Fred broke into a smile and crushed me into a hug, lifting my feet off the ground and spinning me around. George was also smiling but he only gave me a slap on the shoulder.

"Brilliant! Now, what is it?"

It was an idea that had been brewing in my head since Dumbledore announced there would be no quidditch. It was my turn to reveal my plan.