Rules Were Made to Be Broken
Today was a bad day for the Weasley twins. They were in their usual corner of the common room huddled over a piece of parchment and talking in quite distressed but hushed tones.
"Do you think they wrote these on purpose?" Fred was leaning so close to the parchment that his forehead was basically touching the top of the page.
"I don't know, it sure seems like it though," George was shaking his head at his brother's distress. This would only create more fun for them, it was not nearly as bad as Fred was making it out to be.
"I mean, we had almost all of them done and there they go and add another bunch. This will take forever at this rate." That's right, Fred viewed it more of a checklist that just had ten more items added to be completed when they had five left than as a fun game to bother whoever came up with the idea of the checklist in the first place.
"We need to get a new copy of these so we don't forget any too." They were quite likely to drop the parchment or ruin it completing the tasks and it had been such a pain to sneak out of Filch's office before the official announcement.
"Why does it have to be so much work?" George just grinned and slapped his brother on the back, this was going to be good.
On the other side of the common room Harry, Hermione, and Ron were watching this exchange. They couldn't hear everything, but enough to bug them (or Hermione at least) into trying to figure out what was going on.
"Oh, whose homework are they doing? I've never seen them put so much effort into it before," Hermione sounded hopeful that the twins might have actually started caring about school.
"Hermione, I don't think they care about homework that much, to be honest I just assumed they have a problem with the joke-shop business," Ron was bored and not really paying attention, just like any other time Hermione was interested in something happening that didn't involve his or Harry's homework.
"But then what are they saying was added? I never thought they would stress out about more orders?"
"If you don't believe us, then go talk to them and ask!" Ron was clearly exasperated that she wouldn't just let it go and that she kept distracting him from his Exploding Snap game, so Hermione went back to reading her book, A History of the House Elf Enslavement.
They went back to their usual tasks, homework for Hermione and Wizard's Chess for Harry and Ron. They didn't notice Fred and George sneak out the portrait hole, after all the twins were sneaky, and no one paid any attention to their abandoned parchment laying almost forlornly in the corner. If they had they might have seen what it was. Alas none of them noticed and the poor parchment was picked up as rubbish by the house-elves. If they had bothered to look though, this is what they would have seen :
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizadry's New Rules
1. Do not blow up Hogwarts toilets.
2. Do not bother the school owls in the owlery.
3. Do not use the school owls for frivolous experiments or errands.
4. The Room of Requirement is not to be used to host parties.
5. Brooms are not to be ridden in the castle or the Forbidden Forest
6. Potions are not to be taken from the classroom without permission.
7. Do not practice experimental spells without the supervision of a professor.
8. Do not tell the first years you can turn them into cats.
9. Do not transfigure first years even if they ask you to do so.
10. Do not tell the first years they are doomed.
Remember, these rules are for your own safety!