Mischief not so Managed

4: Fred or George?

George:

We filed into the DATDA classroom. I would call it Umbridge's room. But no one owned this room, someone new held it every year. I mean Mad Eye was cool. But it wasn't actually Mad Eye, it was a creepy death eater who had surprise, surprise tried to kill Harry. Fred and I spilt up, it was all part of the plan. We sat on opposite sides of the room, which was highly unusual. "Jones, Oi! Jones" I called to Lia. "come sit here"

"don't you want to sit next to Fred?" she said taken aback.

"move it and sit down" I warned.

"I swear George, you're following me"

"and so what if I am?"

"George, stop flirting and get to it!" Fred hissed from the far side of the classroom, Lia whipped her head around to gawk at Fred in amazement, he was bent double laughing while Angelina started to giggle and whisper to Lia, who quickly shoved her friend off. I glared at my twin so hard I could have burned holes through his skull.

"just sit Lia, please" I begged. Lia gave Angelina a funny look and then sat down next to me, red colouring high in her cheeks.

"what are you two doing?" she asked spotting Fred on the far side of the classroom beside an unassuming Hufflepuff who had probably been hoping for a quiet first day and then fate put them sitting beside one half of Weasley trouble.

"giving Umbridge the welcome she deserves" I snickered.

"what? Are you going to blow her up? Turn her into a toad?" I she asked rummaging in her satchel for a quill. The letters DJ were written across the reddish satchel in gold lettering.

"oh no" I smiled.

"then what?" she asked "I'm getting nervous"

"the oldest trick in the book" I winked at her as the office door opened and Umbridge emerged. Her pink get up completely out of place in the stone cold classroom.

"hello children" she said sweetly staring around the room. Her voice made my skin crawl.

"this should be fun" Lia muttered from beside me.

"ah ah ah" Umbridge crooned "I think we can agree if we have something to say, we will say it aloud children" she crooned. She looked around the room and then down to a list she held in her hands. "let me see, ah Fred and George Weasley, I know your father well"

"unfortunately for him" Fred said from across the class. Sniggering broke out across the room. "Fred" she said waiting for one of us to react, "George" neither of us moved. Lia was biting back a smile beside me.

"say Freddie" Fred said "Or am I Fred?"

"you see that's the thing professor, I don't think I remember which I am" I began, feeling a smile being to linger on my face. "I mean I could be Fred"

"Or I could be George" Fred and I said together. We sounded eerily alike and had mastered speaking at the same time. It drove Mum up the wall and looked like it was going to put Umbridge into some sort of heart failure.

"enough of this" she said.

"Say Fred" Lia turned to me "oh, wait. Or are you George?", I was shocked at her troublesome smile and wicked glint in those very violet eyes

"You see Professor" Lee Jordan began from the back of the room "I've been commentating quidditch matches with those two for seven years and I still can't tell them apart, I mean they can barely remember their own names". The other Hufflepuffs in our class picked up on the act and a cacophony of "Fred? George?" rang out across the room.

"fifty points from Gryffindor!" Umbridge screamed across the classroom "and twenty from Hufflepuff for good measure and detention for both of you!". Groans went out across the classroom "now! N.E.W.T's".

"Sorry about the points" I said to Lee as we left the classroom after one of the most boring and underwhelming classes of all times.

"Forget about it, George" Lee smiled "she's a pain and we all know you and Fred are basically exempt from detention. We'll get the points back, you know Sprout loves your tricks anyway" Lee began to walk away "she'll give you both fifty for walking through the door". He wasn't wrong. Then Lia walked past me with Angelina and Alicia Spinnet.

"Jones, nice work in there"

"anytime Weasley" she retorted turning to give me a wink she walked on with the other two girls, her dark black hair waving behind her as she went.

"Georgie"

"yes Fred" I said turning to my brother.

"do I need to be watching her?"

"I know you threatened her Fred"

"good, so we're all on the same page" my twin said traipsing down the corridor ahead of me.

Lia:

"look into the beyond my children" Trelawney said as she pranced around the tower waving her hands around like a possessed elf. Angelina kept sniggering.

"would you stop?" I asked trying not to laugh myself.

"I can't, this is just too funny" she said from behind her hands.

"I sense" the Professor began.

"oh here we go" Lee Jordan said from the far side of the room shaking his head in his hands.

"that your year will not be as you have for seen it to be"

"how insightful" I said to Angelina "the woman has basically looked back at the last five years of our lives and worked out that there is a very high possibility that this year will be just as bad the last".

"I mean, she's probably not wrong" she laughed.

The rest of the day went by in a flash. Teachers already putting pressure on our looming exams and stories began to spread throughout the castle of the new DATDA teacher who was causing quite the stir. She certainly hadn't enjoyed the twins little show, even though it was bloody hilarious. I couldn't get what Fred had said to George about flirting out of my head. I mean, I had always thought he was funny and handsome. But he had brought Angelina to the Yule Ball last year and I didn't think he ever had any interest in me. I mulled it over as I sat curled up by the fire in the common room pouring over my transfiguration homework, when I heard Hermione and Harry arguing. "you have to tell Dumbledore", I tried not to eavesdrop, Harry suddenly stood up and charged out of the common room.

"everything okay?" I asked Hermione.

"she's using some sort of spell; she gave Harry a scar on his hand, some sort of hexed quill it burned what he was writing onto the back of his hand"

"that's barbaric!" I exclaimed "wait she gave Fred and George detention too"

"you think they'll have shown up?" Ron asked.

"not a chance" I replied with a smile. With that an owl tapped on the window next to me with a letter in its beak. I cracked it opened, the cool night air washing over me. My Mother's handwriting was scrawled over the envelope.

Darling Lia,

It is terribly quiet without you here. Although I have spent most the past few days travelling for my new job as you know, it is confidential. I have heard you have a new Dark Arts teacher, a friend of the Ministers. I would keep a special eye on her, many of us here do not trust her nor what the Ministry is attempting to do Hogwarts.

I hope you are not laden down with too much work just yet. Do write soon, I miss you.

Love always,

Mother xx

What she was doing was so terribly dangerous, but we were at war. No matter what the others said. No matter what the ministry thought. He was back and she was out there to save the world that I was growing up in against some one whose every mission was to destroy it.