When Fred and George Weasley were asked who was their favorite brother, they reacted as follows…
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"Well," Began one twin.
"We'd have to say—" Interrupted the other.
"That we love all our brothers very much—"
"Even Percy—"
"Priggish Percy—"
"Pompous Priggish Percy—"
"Pompous Priggish Percy the Prat—"
"Purple Pumpkin-Eater Pompous Priggish Percy the Prat—"
"Must we have a favorite?"
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The Questioner nodded 'yes' at them. That was, after all, the entire point of the investigation.
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"If we had to—"
"I mean, only if we really really had to—"
"I guess our favorite brother—"
"Would really have to be—"
"Ickle Harrykins." They finished together, in tandem.
"Bill and Charlie were closest with each other—"
"Percy was always a bit of a loner—"
"Ron was taken more by the successfulness of his elder brothers than their companionship—"
"And Gin, the only girl, was always getting fussed over by Mum—"
"Which left us to fend for ourselves."
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When asked why, they became serious for a moment and responded thusly…
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"Well, when we were really little, we always had a bit of an issue—"
"More the subscription than the issues, really—"
"You see, we've always looked too much alike—"
"So, we never knew what our names were—"
"Because we were both Fred and George."
"And when we got a little older—"
"Around when we were about four, most likely—"
"We decided that we wanted our own names—"
"And we decided that one of us would be Fred—"
"And that the other one would be George."
"Now that we had names like all our brothers—"
"Our very own individual names at that—"
"They would recognize us, and we could be happy with that—"
"But, it was all just the same—"
"Mum still called us both 'Fred' and 'George' interchangeably, like we weren't individuals—"
"And, even as a little kid, that hurt a lot—"
"So we made a game of it. "
"If we could get a bit of a lark out of it, then so much for the better. The people who said laughter is the best medicine really had it right—"
"In fact, our family is most definitely the reason we took up pranking—"
"Though once we got to The School of Pretty-Pink-Squiggly-Pustules, we hoped it would be different—"
"But the teachers there couldn't tell us apart either—"
"And neither could Lee Jordan, our first real friend and dorm-mate."
"Eventually, we lost hope that anyone would ever tell us apart—"
"Which was, incidentally, our greatest wish—"
"Heartbroken, we decided that we would just have to prank more because of it—"
"So that at least we could get a bit of laughter here and there."
"And then, in our Third Year at Pigfarts School of Witchery and Wizardcraft—"
"We met Ickle Harrykins."
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The Twins paused here for a moment, smiling fondly in remembrance, before continuing with their story...
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"He was always cursed with an unfortunate dearth of height, that one—"
"And was belly-full of innocent naivety—"
"Like he'd spent his life living under a moonstone—"
"He'd hit it off with little Ronniekins right away—"
"And was an honorary Weasley by Christmas."
"And, on Christmas, we got to talk to him alone for the first time —"
"Or, rather, he did most of the talking, as we were too busy being shocked speechless—"
"Because for someone as naïve as little Harry, he was extraordinarily perceptive—"
"Still is, unless we miss our guess—"
"He'll be an excellent leader one day, everyone will want to listen to him—"
"Or a Healer, because he always seems to know when something's up with people—"
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While the insight to Harry's personality was interesting, as this is the Savior of the Wizarding World, the Boy-Who-Lived, that they are talking about, they were asked to get to the point. In a much more polite fashion than that, I'm sure…
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"Alright, Alright already!"
"Geez, person. Who doesn't want to hear about Harry and extoll his many good qualities?"
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A discrete cough sounds from the background.
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"Fine, fine."
"So, we had a conversation with Harry on Christmas—"
"The poor boy, he wasn't expecting any presents at all—"
"So we teased him a bit, though not about the presents as that was obviously a bit of an off point and it was Christmas and all—"
"And he is our brother, was even then—"
"And Christmas is meant to be a time of celebration—"
"And cheer—"
"And to eat all the food that you can fit in your itsy bitsy bellies—"
"Oh, wait, that's for Ronniekins, though Harrykins could certainly use it—"
"And friends. Which brings us back to talking to Harry—"
"And the cute little eleven year old that he was. He just came up to us—"
"Looked us in the eye, though we were a bit tall for him, and his glasses have certainly seen better days, if it's even the correct per-script-on—"
"And then he went and asked us—"
"Which one of us was whom—"
"With the most absolutely, innocently curious look on his little face—"
"So we played our little game on him—"
"Pretending to be ourselves or each other, usually the latter, for the benefit of humor—"
"But he didn't laugh—"
"That was actually quite worrisome, we didn't want to have lost our touch so early in life—"
"But then Harry looked up at us, into our eyes with this intensity you don't see in eleven year olds, it's just weird—"
"And he asked us, once again—"
"Which one of us was whom—"
"With that serious look on his face—"
"Which was odd, no one ever really cared which one of us was which because we were always together—"
"All the time, everywhere, even in detention the teachers didn't really care to separate us—"
"So, we told him who was Fred and who was George."
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"Colly!" A house elf appeared in the chosen interrogation room at the request of one of the Twins. "Can you bring us both a cup of tea?" The other made the request to the bobbing kitchen elf, who was back momentarily with a cup of steaming tea. Reinvigorated, the pair continued their story, as if they had not stopped at all…
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"And Harrykins, he just stood there for a few moments—"
"And looked us both up and down—"
"If he had been just a tad older or less naïve, we might have—"
"Teased him, just a bit, about giving us both several detailed once-overs—"
"Until we heard what he had to say, at any rate."
"Harrykins was always a bit of adult-ish wisdom in the body of a child, you know—"
"Though I shudder to remember why he's got that wisdom, of course—"
"He told us something that we believe to be a fundamental truth, and one he had no business knowing about—"
"He said that "you should always know who you are, even if no one else cares.""
"So we told him that we knew, and that we were Fred and George as much as FredAndGeorge—"
"Not that I think he believed what we were saying, in any case—"
"But we told him who was who—"
"And he spent another few minutes studying us—"
"And then said that we were going to spend the next while with him—"
"So that he could be sure that he would never not be able to tell us apart—"
"Before we did just that."
"And, since then, the only time that Harry has gotten one of us mixed up with the other—"
"Was when he was trying to do it without his glasses—"
"But we supposed we should forgive him for that—"
"Because, as we all know, ickle Harrykins is as blind as Ron's stomach is big without the help of his glasses."
"And, though we'll never admit it—"
"We were the one who took his glasses in the first place."
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Grinning, both of the Twins gave little two-finger salutes that they had seen other students use, and walked out of the makeshift room just before it morphed back to its original state and the Questioner walked out behind them.
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