AN: QLFC Season 5 Round 4 entry. Prompts used this time were cat, "Could you be happy here with me?", and print (prompts 2, 4, 5).
Oh man, I can't believe that in all my years of writing fanfiction I never wrote a fic about twins despite being a twin myself. This fic is basically my own interactions with my twin lmao. My twin and I are made out of inside jokes, weird references, and dumb conversations. And yes, people straight up asking if we have twin telepathy is, in fact, super common. This fic also does me the favour of being short, for once.
As a last note, the title comes from Lorde's song Team.
Word count: 1,378
It starts because of something Dean Thomas says a week into their first year.
The Ravenclaws and Gryffindors are sharing a class for once, and the Patil twins immediately sat together. They've been talking ever since as they waited for class to start. It's hard to follow their conversation, at times, because they don't always finish a sentence, talk over each other at times, and say things like 'the thing,' or 'that one with the hair,' or even 'the horse but not.'
"Oh hey," Dean says, twisting around in his seat in front of the girls. "Do you guys actually have twin telepathy? Is that a thing?"
The Patil twins fall silent, both looking at him with identical expressions of incredulity.
"I'm sorry," Padma says, "I'm not sure what you're talking about."
Dean shrugs and makes a vague motion between them with his hand. "It's a muggle-born myth, kind of? Apparently twins can read each other's minds. It's never been really proven but it's never really been proven wrong, either. So. Can you? You two are the first twins I've met."
Parvati shares a dubious look with Padma. Padma raises an eyebrow. Parvati turns to Dean and shrugs. "I don't know," she says. "Padma hasn't ever heard of that either."
"Okay," Dean says slowly, "but have you ever like, felt stuff? That the other felt? I heard on the telly that one twin could tell when the other got hurt, once."
"Oh," Padma turns to Parvati, "what about that time at the lake - ?"
"That doesn't count," Parvati says immediately, turning to her as well. "I'm pretty sure you were just squeamish about the blood -"
"Didn't I faint right when you did, though," Padma interrupts.
"No, you fainted right after, I know because I saw you fall into the mud, which was hilarious only after I got my arm fixed. Maybe the time I got that toothache counts?" Parvati says, pointing with her finger to indicate the tooth.
"That was because you had a cavity," Padma denies.
"But I got the toothache right after you had your tooth pulled - "
Dean looks between them, head swivelling to whichever spoke like he was following a tennis match. Everyone around them watches as well, surprised and curious. Some of the other first years whisper to each other about if it really is possible to communicate with someone with just your mind.
By the end of the night, the entirety of Hogwarts fully believed that the Patil twins could talk with each other telepathically.
Terry Boot sets down his things next to Padma and begins to pile some mashed potato onto his plate before he's even fully seated.
Padma sneezes.
"Bless you," Terry says, not even looking up from his dinner. He places some steamed vegetables onto his plate next.
Padma sneezes again. Then twice more in quick succession. She groans pitifully, pulling out a handkerchief from her pocket to dab at her nose.
"I think I'm -" she sneezes.
Terry finally looks up, eyebrows furrowed. "Are you getting sick? You should visit Madam Pomfrey," he says.
Padma shakes her head, sneezing again.
"I'm pretty sure you're sick," Terry says, edging away from her..
"I'm not sick, I'm -" another sneeze.
On the other side of the table, Anthony Goldstein pulls out a corked vial with a bright green potion inside. "Here," he says. "I had a cold earlier too. Madam Pomfrey gave one of these to me." He places it by her dinner plate. "It doesn't taste as bad as it looks, honestly."
Padma shakes her head again. "I'm telling you, it's not that," she says, but she sneezes again.
A girl beside Padma gives her a dubious look.
Parvati comes up from behind her then. "Cat?" she says, nonchalantly pointing to Terry. Padma nods, sneezing once more into her handkerchief.
Parvati casts Scourgify on him, ignoring his shouted protests, and then walks past to continue to the Gryffindor table. Padma stops sneezing.
"What was that?" Anthony says, bewildered.
"Allergies," Padma says.
"How'd she even know?" Terry asks, tugging his robes back into place with an annoyed expression.
Padma gives him a flat look. "She's my twin."
Anthony takes back his potion. "They can read each other's minds," Anthony mutters to Terry, but Padma hears and rolls her eyes.
On the morning before their first Transfiguration exam, Parvati is rubbing her face with both hands.
"It's useless," she groans to Lavender. "I'm going to fail."
"You won't fail, Parvati," Lavender is quick to reassure her. "You're plenty good at Transfiguration. You just need to remember the theory."
"That's exactly the problem," Parvati says. She looks morosely at her Transfiguration textbook. "I spent the whole night studying, so now I can barely keep myself awake, and I still can't remember everything we need to know."
She slumps onto the table, dejected. Her hair narrowly misses her scrambled eggs. "I'm going to fail, and then when my parents hear they'll be so mad."
Lavender looks at her in concern, pushing over a goblet of pumpkin juice. "Sugar helps wake me up," she says. "And cheer up, I'm sure it won't be that bad."
Parvati looks up to give her an aggrieved look "'That bad?' You've obviously never met my parents." She sighs, taking a sip from of pumpkin juice.
"Who are they to stand in the way of happiness?" says someone behind them in a melodramatic voice. They turn to see Padma with a solemn look on her face. "Could you be happy here? With me?" She places a hand over her heart.
Parvati chokes on her pumpkin juice.
Padma grins, drops a piece of parchment on Parvati's open Transfiguration textbook, and flounces off.
"What was that?" Lavender asks, peering at the parchment Padma had left behind. It's her Transfiguration notes, with all the important theories framed in neat red boxes.
"She was just cheering me up," Parvati coughs out, wiping at the mess of pumpkin juice around her. "That was a quote from Mom's soap opera, it's kind of a joke between us."
Lavender nods slowly, passing the notes to Parvati.
"Aw," Parvati says, "she put a star next to the theory I wasn't sure about." She looks up and does finger guns, seemingly at random.
Lavender quickly glances up and sees Padma returning the finger guns before she turns away. "How'd she know which ones you had trouble with?" she asks, looking back to Parvati.
Parvati shrugs, already engrossed in reading the notes. "She's Padma, she always knows."
"Right," Lavender says. "Of course."
The Patil twins are seen arguing in the hallway. No one really knows why, because neither of them are talking in a way that makes sense.
"There's no way Ivan would help her," Padma says. "Ivan's one of the bad guys."
"But he helped Jose's sister," Parvati argues. "With the school thing," she elaborates, though it seems to only be an elaboration to Padma, who nods thoughtfully. Everyone else remains confused.
"Not really though. He only did that because he hates Sasha more," she says. Parvati makes a frustrated noise.
"Look, Ivan's not actually a bad guy," she says. "In the last print of Witch's Weekly they interviewed him and he said - "
"But he didn't even like Ivan as a character anyway -"
"That was ages ago though!"
"That was three months ago -"
"He only said it because of that drama with -"
"No, I'm pretty sure he was sincere -"
It's only an hour later when Hannah Abbott says "Are they talking about that radio show?" that anyone remotely understands.
Dean Thomas sits down in front of the Patil twins once more, a few minutes before class starts. "Right," he says, "For real this time, do you guys have twin telepathy or something?"
Padma shakes her head with a roll of her eyes, but Parvati is grinning. "Of course we do," Parvati says, the same time that Padma says "No, we don't."
Dean groans into his hands.