"Excuse me, I have had it up to here with you, this is the Gryffindor common room - "
"Fiddlesticks!" Fred and Aubrey said in time. Whilst it was the password, it also felt like a bizarrely appropriate answer too.
"Anyway, it's more complicated than that," Fred grinned, "And she knew the password so..."
The Fat Lady folded her arms, sticking her nose in the air and refusing to look them in the eye yet the picture still swung open. As they dashed in, Aubrey did say a vague 'Thank you!' but was coolly ignored. Surprisingly, only the Fat Lady seemed to have an objection to Aubrey's presence; a few people gave them disapproving scowls but nobody else said anything.
Fred was quiet as the pair manically dashed up the stairs, Aubrey struggling to catch up due to her now shorter legs. She'd truly taken for granted Fred's athleticism when she'd had it and was now regretting not having used it a bit more, gone for runs around the lake when she had the chance. Because they were stealing but not stealing, her mind had immediately jumped to George so she was rather surprised when Fred simply raced up past the dorm onto the next floor. Immediately he already prevalent concern worsened, her pace slowing as her trepidation increased.
"Fred...?" She whispered, gently stepping on the landing to see the door already open, "Who's dorm is this?"
He didn't reply so she followed him in, her brows furrowing as she found him standing in the middle, his hands on his head.
"Are you alright, hon?" She asked, "You look just like I did in Herbology this morning when Sprout asked me a question..."
"No ..." He replied, "It's not here."
Again she repeated herself, "What's not here?"
"I used a summoning spell and everything," He murmured. Despite their differences in athleticism, she thought she'd been pretty close behind him but clearly not.
"For what?" She asked, coming up behind him and resting her hand on his shoulder, "Maybe it will come crashing through a door like last time."
He shook his head, "It can't, it's paper."
"We're stealing paper from a stranger?"
"No, we're not stealing a map from Harry," Fred replied, "I would have given it back right after, I wouldn't take anything from Harry, he's great but ... he doesn't have it either."
"A map? Why do we need a map?" She asked, quirking an eyebrow as Fred tentatively opened one of the drawers before hastily slamming it shut.
"It's not just any map," Fred straightened up to face her, "This map is wicked, helped us Merlin knows how many times ... it lets you track everyone's location every minute of every day. I thought we could use it to bump into Mad-Eye and duplicate his flask."
"That sounds ..." Many words came to mind, including 'deeply unethical' and an 'invasion of privacy'. However, whilst she knew she should have said those words, what came out was, "The best thing I have ever heard of ... so much power... we need to find it."
A grin spread across Fred's face, "There we go! But I still can't find it."
She paced across the room a few times before swivelling towards him, clicking her fingers, "We use the map and find Harry! ... okay, I forgot we didn't have the map, got carried away. But we can still find Harry just by checking the Teacher's timetables and ask him then!"
With that, the two rushed downstairs but they'd barely made it one flight before a minor inconvenience struck. Just as they jumped off the bottom step, out of excitement, the pair almost collided in mid-air. Luckily, they managed to avert this crisis, laughing slightly at how close they were to disaster. Sadly, just as they were celebrating escaping one potential accident, Fred took a few steps back and managed to get thwacked hard on the back as his door dorm slammed opened.
"OUCH!"
He was shunted forwards as Aubrey rushed to him, looking up to see a very apathetic Kenny staring forwards, "Whoops. I didn't see you th... Aubrey?!"
She glowered at him, "Kenny!"
"Wh-what are you doing here? You're not allowed to be in here!"
"She's been in here a lot recently - "
"Shhh!" Aubrey hissed, standing up straight to meet Kenny's eye.
His tough exterior had vanished as Kenny now stuttered, "I thought it was just one of the twins, I wouldn't have done that if I'd known you were there! I'm sorry, Aubrey - "
"That doesn't make it any better!"
"You're sorry, Aubrey?" Fred huffed, "I'm the one you bloody hit, mate."
Despite being in the wrong, Kenny squared his shoulders stubbornly, "I'm not your mate ... anyway, consider that payback for making me sick."
"You're still angry about that?" Fred asked, genuinely mystified as Aubrey rolled her eyes at both of them.
"Considering I hit you with a door, think you can figure that one out on your own," Kenny replied before turning to Aubrey, "And please don't tell, Angela, I told her I'd got over this a long time ago..."
Aubrey raised an eyebrow, "Well, maybe - "
Aubrey, shut up
Even though she wasn't too happy, Fred rarely cut her off like this, so she obliged, glancing down at him, "What? Why? I was about to give him a witty comeback!"
Oh, what was it?
"... okay, I lied, it wasn't that witty at all," She admitted.
I think I've found a way for Kenny to make it up to us ...
"Aubrey, go on..." Kenny prompted.
"I don't want to," She murmured, turning back to Fred who's back was suddenly conveniently healed, "Fred, hon, what are you doing?..."
"Consider it forgotten," He grinned, extending a hand towards Kenny, "We can put it behind us..."
For a second Kenny eyed it up tentatively, checking for any potential humiliation before shaking it, "Alright..."
"You know since Aubrey and I became ..." He turned to her, asking telepathically:
What exactly are we?
She simply shrugged, "You can't ask me questions of your own when you haven't answered mine ... what are you doing?!"
"Friends who are maybe more than friends but ... friends," Fred finished, "Well, we haven't really hung out - "
"Yes, because you've been spending every waking hour with her," Kenny replied.
"I've spent so much time with her that at points it almost felt like I was her," At this, Aubrey gently dug her elbow into his ribs, raising an eyebrow, "In a metaphorical sense, so I thought it would make sense if we were friends too."
"Is this is a scheme against me?" Kenny asked, "Aubrey, is this a scheme against me?"
"I don't know," Aubrey replied truthfully, raising her eyebrows in an expectant manner, "I really don't know ... Fred, is it?"
"Not against you, with you," He grinned, "I've found that breaking the rules, planning pranks and schemes really are the best ways to get to know a person."
"Fred, hon ... what?!" She turned to him.
I was thinking about duplicating the flask from Moody and the fact we need to switch it later at the task. We could only do it once without arousing suspicion ... so I decided to improve on the plan there and then. If Kenny does it whilst we distract him, it could work
Even though their mental conversation was meant to be secret, Aubrey's evident confusion was written across her face, contorting her features so much that Kenny picked up on it.
"Aubrey, what's wrong?"
"Nothing..." She replied, before adding to Fred, "No, the last thing I want is to involve one more person into the plan, what if he gets hurt too?"
We haven't seen him for the past year, Mad-Eye's never seen us together as far except maybe at meals and even then, we weren't on his radar. This could help us in the long run
"No," She replied, "You are not involving Kenny - "
"So, the plan, which I can't disclose yet, is that we need to create a replica of Mad-Eye's flask but he's already suspicious as we pranked him before. So we'll create a diversion whilst you use the Gemino spell," Fred grinned.
"Is this why you apologised then?" Kenny asked.
"Maybe but I genuinely think it could make things alright between us," Fred replied, "Besides, for the diversion, I was thinking I would fall down the stairs or bump into a wall or something..."
Despite looking mildly bemused moments before, Kenny's head was now slightly nodding, "... okay, okay, that sounds funny. What? And all you want is for me to duplicate Mad-Eye's flask? That pisses easy."
"He has all those eye things so it's a lot harder than you think," Aubrey murmured, folding her arms as she glanced between the two grinning boys, "Fred, why did you do that?!"
It's called seizing the moment, Aubrey...
• • •
When the two returned to the library, after a surprisingly nice conversation with Kenny, Fred was dismayed to see that Aubrey actually wanted to work, propping the book up like a wall so it covered her face. At first, he thought nothing of it until a shiver of irritation passed through him.
"Aubrey, are you annoyed at me?"
"Yes."
"Oh ... I didn't think you'd be so direct about it," He admitted, poking at the book to get her attention which led to it toppling over. Now the book was flat on the table, the frustration was so clearly written on her face, he felt foolish for not having seen it before.
"I was reading that," She replied, "It may have slipped our minds, but we have an entire year's worth of content to learn."
"This is about Kenny isn't it? Your mood, I mean, the work's just unfortunate..."
She sighed, "Yes, it is."
"I'm sorry for involving him but I saw a chance and I took it. What's Mad-Eye going to do to him anyway? He's hardly spent any time with us all year, if Angela noticed anything wrong with him she'd bring her Ministry Mummy in and Mad-Eye can't exactly hex him with no reason, if he didn't have to. Kenny's stubborn, he'd probably just pretend he wanted it for a fashion accessory or something and stand up to the old man," Fred replied, "We can't risk doing it ourselves, he'd get suspicious. If we simply distract him with 'imperius humour', he's less likely to catch on."
She sighed, "I see where you're coming from ... why am I like this? I should be wallowing, throwing books around not being all understanding! Maybe give me a few minutes, let me get some angriness in?"
"Honestly, it's better that you're not."
"I know that too," She replied, "I just don't want more people to get hurt for us. George and Lexy are already ... you know."
"I know," He replied, gripping her hand across the table, "But we're - "
The two suddenly jumped in time as a strange sound came from a few meters away: a bizarre rustle of fabric and an odd pop followed by several books falling off the shelf. Fred leapt up, refusing to let go of Aubrey's hand as they turned to look.
"What was that?" She whispered, "Mad-Eye? Do ... do you think he was listening?"
"No, I would have seen him. It sounded like somebody apparated in but I didn't see anyone," He replied.
"But you can't apparate on Hogwarts..."
"I know," He replied, rubbing his head, "But you also shouldn't swap bodies and you know what happened there. Maybe the old rules don't apply anymore..."
For a moment, they paused before Aubrey shivered, "Okay, I say we just go with the plan then. The sooner we get rid of 'this old magic' the better."
• • •
Aubrey's 'hon' is no accident. I have my reasons for her using that and 'girl' a lot, they're dotted throughout the book. Also, I'm going to miss studying Communist Russia so much, it's ridiculously interesting - E x