Written for The Houses Competition
House Hufflepuff
Category: Short story
Prompt: "It's always a competition with you, isn't it?"
Word count: 1,007
Beta'd by Dark Angel of Sorrow Returns
Fred and George Weasley were identical twins, pranksters, and very competitive with each other since they were young. Ever since they grew old enough to understand that not everyone could tell them apart, they tried to find something that one of them was better at than the other. That way everyone would know that twin who was good at so-and-so was Fred and the twin that was good at whatchamacallit was George. Thus started their legendary, to them, battle of figuring out who was best at what.
Today it was Quidditch, specifically playing as a Beater. They had managed to gather their family together for a tournament of sorts. Bill, Charlie and Percy would fly around on their brooms while Fred and George simultaneously tried to hit them and keep the bludgers away from them. Ron and Ginny were on the ground with their parents; they hadn't been allowed to join in as they were too young for such a dangerous sport as Quidditch, especially when it was a twin version that only involved bludgers.
The five boys mounted their brooms and waited for Ron to signal the start of the match; they couldn't just leave their little brother completely out of it after all. As they waited, the twins exchanged quips with each other.
"I'm going to leave you in the dust," one of them said.
"Oh yeah? Well I'm going to pick up that dust and make a nice little dust trail with it so you can follow me."
Charlie sighed, "It's always a competition with you, isn't it?"
The twins looked at each other, "Yes," they said simultaneously before kicking off as Ron yelled the beginning of the game.
When they discovered the Marauder's Map in Filch's office, they immediately set to memorising where each secret passageway was and where it went. Each day, they would quiz each other on what they knew, each day it was the same. Both of them would know most, but not all until the day did they both knew all of them.
The other students who saw them whispering fiercely to each other kept their opinions on the twin's rivalry to themselves. It was common knowledge at Hogwarts that while the Weasley twins couldn't be closer, they were also fiercely competitive with each other. It was always a competition with them.
The Yule Ball became a competition of its own; since the twins hadn't been able to get into the Triwizard Tournament, they created their own tournament. It was simple, the girls would decide how great their night was and whichever girl rated it higher, the twin that had taken her would win. Fred took Angelina while George took Hailey, and when asked about the time they had, they both replied that they had had a really fun night.
After they had received this bit of news, the two twins slumped down on the couches in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room. "We're never going to find something, are we?"
"We will. Hey, how many canary creams do you think you can eat before turning into a canary?"
The twins set to seeing if they could beat the other in amount of canary creams eaten and were soon covered in feathers. Alicia Spinnet walked past them and shook her head in wonder and slight disapproval, "It's always a competition with you, isn't it?"
After the Battle of Hogwarts George Weasley was trying to work his way through his grief of losing his twin. He kept Weasley Wizard Wheezes open and continued to make products. He didn't invent any new ones for a while; but a year after the Battle, he finally got back into inventing and experimenting.
One night, he was sitting on his couch reminiscing about all their competitions. Every single one of them had seemed to end in a tie, or so close that it wasn't really worth mentioning as a way to tell them apart. Besides, you couldn't really ask a twin to eat as many canary creams as he can before turning every time you saw him just to be sure about who you were talking to.
"You know, Fred," he said to the air as he tended to do since Fred's death, "we never found something. All those things we did and not one of them made a difference to other people. Of course, now everyone knows which twin is which. Fred's dead and George is alive. Even if you'd survived they'd know who was who, given that I'm holey now."
"Does that mean I win? I didn't want to win this way, I wish it was back to the way it was before. Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley because they were so scared they'd get it wrong, even though we told them we didn't mind. We were used to it back then, weren't we? Being called each other's name and our stupid competitions.
"Remember what everyone said when they saw us? 'It's always a competition with you, isn't it?'" he huffed out a laugh. "Well I guess the winner takes it all, no one calls me Fred anymore, they know who I am. I win."
With that, he drained the glass of Firewhiskey he had been holding and stumbled off to bed where he faceplanted and fell asleep immediately.
Fred Weasley didn't move from his place on the couch. The older twin hadn't been able to leave George behind so he had stayed, as a ghost, to watch over his twin.
He supposed George was right, the competition was over, everyone knew which one was which now. But there were always other things they could compete over, other reasons to see who was better at a particular thing. One competition may be over, but Fred knew that it wouldn't be the last. As soon as George joined him they'd be back at it; maybe they'd see who could spook someone out the most. Or who could create the biggest explosion that no one would notice. The possibilities were endless.