Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything associated with Harry Potter. J. K. Rowling owns everything to do with Harry Potter. I am only letting off creativeness, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Harry pushed his hair out of his sweaty face, and struggled to keep up with the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
He stumbled, steadied himself, and kept running.
He could hear Wood, the team's Captain, calling encouraging things to them. By now, it just seemed like blabbering in the background.
He put on an extra spurt of speed, and came up beside the Weasley twins.
"Come on Harry" said Fred.
"You're slacking" joked George.
They laughed, and Harry smiled weakly.
"What's wrong with you this morning? Are you still asleep?" asked Fred.
Harry grunted.
"Why did Wood put all this extra running at early hours of the morning, anyways?" asked Fred.
"Something about a new training program…" replied George.
"Yeah, that or punishment for me not catching the snitch last game…" puffed Harry.
The twins laughed.
"Well, we got that penalty for smacking Flint in the face with our bats…" said Fred.
"And for doing the same thing for Malfoy – only we broke his nose…" said George sourly.
"I think it was an improvement…" muttered Fred.
"And it was kind of because of that penalty that you didn't catch the snitch anyway, Harry. After we hit Malfoy and he started crying – " said George.
" – the snitch flew right into his pretty biddy mouth" said Fred.
Harry went to laugh, but ended up swallowing a bug, and choking instead.
"Gee's Harry! It's not that funny" laughed George.
"Yeah, no need to imitate Malfoy! We all saw him!" Fred exclaimed.
They laughed.
"Let's go talk to Wood. See ya Harry!" called George, as they ran off to talk to the Captain.
Harry coughed a bit more, and settled for watching his feet.
Wood had insisted they all wear 'Rachel's non-stop running shoes'. They only stop running when Wood commanded them to.
Harry would have stopped already if he could, but he couldn't.
Fred and George had been trying for the past few hours to stop the shoes with their wands, but all they had succeeded in doing was burning their toes, and making their socks smell like dead animals.
Harry's feet were going at a steady pace. Though the shoes made him run, they didn't help to steady himself over uneven ground.
The ground was muddy with the hundreds of footprints that had run through it over the past three hours.
Harry had a stitch in his side, which was burning.
He wheezed.
He kept watching his feet in their rhythmic pattern.
He saw a pair of shoes, simular to his own, only maybe a few size bigger in front of him.
Inside these shoes were socks which smelled strongly of dead animals.
Inside these socks were a pair of ankles.
These ankles appeared to be jogging on the spot.
Harry ran straight into Fred Weasley.
"Hey! Watch it!" Fred said.
"Wood! Turn these things off!" called George.
"Stop!" yelled Wood.
The Gryffindor Quidditch team stopped running – except Fred and George.
"What's wrong with your shoes?" asked Wood.
"I dunno! They must be malfunctioning or something!" cried Fred.
"Good on you, Wood! You've gone and bought us some faulty shoes!" George said angrily.
They went over to Wood who was attempting spells with his wand. Nothing was working.
"Get him, George!" cried Fred.
George kicked Wood's bum.
"Hey!" shrieked Wood.
"This – is – for – making – us – run – " said George a kick to every word.
" – In – the – early – hours – of – the – morning!" exclaimed Fred, joining in with the kicking.
Wood had his hands over his bum, and was trying to get away from the two.
"Hey! Stop fighting, and get off our pitch!" snarled Marcus Flint, the Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team.
The reason they had stopped was that the entire Slytherin Quidditch team were blocking their path.
"You heard what he said, move it!" spat Draco Malfoy.
Fred and George rounded on him.
"Fixed your nose, I see, Malfoy. Is it ready for us to break next game?" teased George.
"No changes to your hairstyle, I see, Weasley" retorted Malfoy, coolly.
George blushed as red as his hair.
"You know, I hear there's this stuff around, nowadays…it's called hair dye! Imagine that! Something that could change the colour of your hair to something not quite so bright! Why would you want to do that?" asked Malfoy. As he spoke, he and the other members of his Quidditch team put on matching pairs of sunglasses on.
"Sunglasses? Those are muggle inventions, you know…" Fred said.
Malfoy snatched the glasses off his face, and threw them at the ground near Fred's feet.
"Yeah, and you would know, from your muggle loving Father! Sell those, Weasley! Then maybe you'll have enough money to buy enough hair dye to cover a small mouse…you might have to scrape together what you can for the rest of you…how many are there? Ten?" sneered Malfoy.
"Nine…" muttered George.
"Ah, well I was close!" Malfoy sneered.
Harry took two steps towards Malfoy, reached out his right arm, made a fist and swung it directly into Malfoy's snarling face.
He swung back for a second hit, and felt his arm being pulled back by the twins.
"It's not worth it, mate!" they told him.
"You'll be joining the Weasley's in detention, Potter" snarled Malfoy, turning as blood rushed out of his nose. He left the pitch, the rest of his team following him as he went back to the castle.
"Well, looks like we've got the pitch again…that detention had better not interfere with my training program, Harry" Wood threatened.
"Forget that! Nice hit, Harry" Fred exclaimed, hitting him on the back.
"It only got him into trouble! Well…I suppose it got us the pitch back so…well done, Harry" Wood decided.
"Can't we just go back up to the castle?" complained Alicia (another member of the Quidditch team).
"Now? After we got the pitch all to ourselves? No way! Well, I suppose breakfast will be starting soon…OK" said Wood.
The team started heading back to the castle, with Wood in the lead.
"Hey! Come back here! We're not through with you!" George called to Wood, who started running when he heard him.
After breakfast, Fred and George blocked Harry on his way to the Common room.
"What do you want? I'm in a hurry" he asked.
"What are you in a hurry for on a Saturday morning?" asked Fred.
"I've got to study with Hermione…exams are coming up" Harry announced.
"Really? We had no idea! It's not as though we've had that speech already – " said George.
"– By Hermione – " said Fred.
"– and Percy – "said George.
"– and every teacher in the school – "said Fred.
"– For weeks – " finished George.
"Yeah…why? What did you guys want to do?" asked Harry.
"Well, we were going to go down to that pool, just behind Hagrid's house" Fred explained.
"You mean the lake?" asked Harry.
"No…the other one…" said George.
"The one in the forbidden forest? That's against the school rules!" cried Harry.
"Well we're all already in detention…why not?" asked Fred.
"Good point…when do we leave?" asked Harry.
Fred and George smiled at each other.
Fred, George and Harry were crowded under Harry's invisibility cloak, making their way slowly into the Forbidden Forest.
"Are we nearly there?" asked Harry.
"Yeah, it's just behind this tree…" said George.
They went behind the tree, and came to a pool of water.
The water was still, and it was surrounded by large rocks.
The water was clear, and you could see the clay bottom.
Harry turned to look at the other two, but saw they had stripped down to their boxers, and were diving in the pool already.
Harry took the invisibility cloak off, and put it by the tree.
He stripped down to his boxers, and bombed into the pool.
"Are you glad you came?" asked Fred.
"Yeah…this place is kind of romantic though…a bit disturbing…" said Harry.
"Yeah…hence the name…the pool of romance…" Fred laughed.
"Just so you know – we aren't gay" laughed George.
"No! Neither! It's just…hey, I know what'll make it better! Hermione gave me a spell…hang on…varumeena kondemeena!" cried Harry, waving his wand in a strange series of loops.
The pool of water suddenly erupted in bubbles.
"Oy! You made it a romantic spa!" cried Fred, jumping out of the pool.
"Sorry…I meant to make it more manly…it didn't work!" laughed Harry.
"Yeah…how do you turn the bubbles off?" asked George.
"Oh…um…we didn't get that far…" muttered Harry.
"Well…that kind of stuffs that up a bit…hey! Let's play truth or dare!" announced Fred.
"Okay…Harry? Truth or dare?" asked George.
"Dare!" answered Harry.
"I dare you to go and…pee on the Whomping Willow!" exclaimed George.
"Alright…" Harry said.
He stood, got out of the bubbling pool, and turned straight into Argus Filch – the caregiver.
"Well, well, well…what have we here?" asked Filch with a smile which showed all of his rotten teeth.
He was carrying a bag which had small candles, a lighter, and several incense sticks. Next to him stood his cat, Mrs. Norris.
Harry cursed, and spun around.
Fred and George were nowhere to be seen.
Thanks a lot, guys, he thought.
Suddenly, hundreds of fireworks erupted behind Filch.
While Filch was distracted, Harry took the chance to grab his invisibility cloak and run out of the forest. There, he found Fred and George laughing their heads off at the sounds coming from the forest. They could hear the fireworks exploding, and Filch's mad yelling.
They ran back to the castle, still in fits of laughter.
Harry shivered, and tried to cover himself.
He was wearing nothing but boxers, and they were running over and exposed patch of grass.
"Filch has no proof we were there, but those fireworks will have him raving for days!" laughed Fred, throwing Harry his clothes.
Harry looked over his shoulder, where Filch was now skipping around, trying to detach a firework from his rear end.
Harry laughed.
