At 3:15 in the morning, a set of twins sneak out of their common room to steal ingredients from Professor Snape's private stores. No, it's not Fred and George Weasley. It's Ella and Sophie Hammerstein, pranksters to rival Fred and George, for after all, they were taught by notorious duo themselves. All was quiet as the two snuck out, which was odd, especially for Hogwarts. However, Ella and Sophie were too intent on their mission to notice something like that.
As they crept down the stairs into the dungeons, they heard some sort of a screech.
"Is he torturing a bird?" Sophie whispered to Ella.
"Maybe it's a chicken," Ella whispered back.
"A chicken is a bird, you idiot!" said Sophie.
Ella clapped her hand over Sophie's mouth. "Shut up, before he hears you! We don't want to get caught. Remember what happened last time?"
Sophie nodded. Neither girl wanted to go through that again, polishing Snape's potion trophies once was enough. Last time they had to listen to all of his stories about his victories and how they would be lucky if they were even half the genius he was. It went on for hours! Of course, it could be worse. But then again, probably not.
Both girls peeked around the corner. Neither could believe what they saw.
There stood Snape, with curlers in his hair, wearing a fuzzy pink robe. The screeching noise turned out to be Snape singing "The Hills Are Alive" from The Sound of Music. Loudly. It was the worst thing either girl had ever heard, and they'd heard Ron Weasley sing. Which trust me, doesn't sound like singing at all.
The hills are alive with the sound of music!
Snape's voice echoed throughout the dungeon and the girls immediately stuck their fingers in their ears.
"Let's just get what we came for and get out!" cried Ella, cringing.
"Are those bunny slippers?" whispered Sophie incredulously.
Ella looked at Snape's feet. To her amazement there were pink bunny slippers there, smiling happily. She shuddered. It was just too creepy. Why in the world would Snape, one of the most hated teachers Hogwarts ever had, be wearing bunny slippers? Her mind just couldn't grasp it. Snape wearing bunny slippers? Impossible.
Ella shook her head and poked Sophie, hard. She was staring at Snape as though he had turned into You-Know-Who. Sophie was frozen in shock.
"Ow! What was that for?" shrieked Sophie.
"I had to snap you out of it somehow. Now come on, we should get out of here. And soon." Ella reached into the cabinet and snatched the boomslang skin. She grabbed Sophie's hand and ran. Their footsteps echoed throughout the dungeons. The horrible, screeching voice of Snape suddenly stopped.
"Who's there?" he called out.
"Run faster!" Ella screamed in Sophie's ear. They thundered up the steps and ran into the first empty classroom they found.
Panting, they searched the room for a place to hide. There was a bookshelf positioned over a corner, far from the door.
"Perfect!" gasped Sophie. "We can hide behind there."
They quickly climbed over it and dropped into the space behind the bookshelf.
"Man that was close!" said Ella. "We're so lucky Snape didn't catch us. We would've been dead meat, especially since we saw him in his slippers."
Both girls giggled despite themselves. They heard the door creak open as they tried to muffle their laughter. In walked Professor Dumbledore, who was talking to Hagrid. Judging by the looks on their faces, it was about something very important.
Ella and Sophie looked at each other. They were both thinking the same thing, as twins often do--iwhat were they talking about, and what on earth were they doing up at three in the morning?/i The professors spoke in hushed tones, but they heard something about a meeting.
Hagrid was wearing a serious expression as he exited the room behind Dumbledore. Sophie motioned for Ella to follow her out. But Sophie, being clumsy as she is, tripped over--well, she didn't really trip over anything, she just tripped. Anyway, Ella then tripped over Sophie. Hagrid, hearing the racket they made, reentered the classroom.
"Hi, Hagrid," chorused the twins cheerfully. Hagrid gave them a funny look.
"What are yeh doin' in here at this hour?" he asked.
"We were…er…well…uh…looking for our Transfiguration homework! Yeah, we thought we left it in here." The twins gave him their best innocent look.
Hagrid gave them another funny look, but went on to say, "Yeh'd best be off before someone else catches yeh. Besides, I'd better get back home, my chimaera egg'll be hatchin' anytime now. Now, don't go around repeatin' that." He left in a hurry, obviously kicking himself for letting that last bit slip.
Ella and Sophie sighed in relief. They were lucky it was Hagrid who caught them. Anyone else would have given them detention or handed them over to Filch. They were lucky this time, but they knew that there was no way they would get that lucky again.
They quickly hightailed it to another empty room.
This room was obviously not a classroom. The twins had never been there before, so they weren't sure. It didn't matter what it was used for, though, they heard footsteps. The girls searched yet again for a place to hide. This room wasn't quite as accommodating as the last, so they had to make do with hiding behind a curtain.
They quickly pulled it aside and got behind it, making themselves as small as possible. Ella and Sophie watched as all of the Hogwarts teachers entered the room one by one.
Sophie came to a sudden realization. "This must be the teacher's lounge," she whispered.
"And they must be having a meeting or something. Why else would they all be here?" finished Ella. She rifled looking through her pockets, looking for something. "Darn! I must've left the Extendable Ears in the common room last night. And those were the 'new and improved' ones Fred and George gave us, too!"
Sophie gave her sister a look as if to say "You idiot!" and reached into her own pocket.
"Here, we can share mine," she said.
They put the pieces in their ears and threw it into the room. Listening intently, they continued to watch the teachers in the room.
"I can't hear anything!" whispered Ella.
"Neither can I," said Sophie. The only thing she could hear was a sort of distant buzzing. It was quite annoying, really. "Remind me later to talk to Fred and George. Someone needs to tell them that they're not so brilliant after all. How long do you think this will last? I can't stand sitting here not knowing what's going on."
Just as that was said, the teachers filed out of the room. McGonagall stopped at the door, as if she thought someone was still in the room. She glanced around, shrugged, and closed the door, leaving the twins in utter darkness. The twins let out a sigh of relief, but remained behind the curtain a few minutes longer, just in case.
"Is it safe to leave?" whispered Ella.
"Well, we'll never know unless we try," said Sophie climbing out from behind the curtain. "Come on," she said and headed for the door.
Ella, being the more cautious of the two, stayed behind, making sure the curtain was just as they found it.
"No time for that!" said Sophie impatiently. "You saw the look on McGonagall's face. Knowing her, she'll back any minute to check again."
"Oh, all right," said Ella, reluctantly following her sister out the door.
Their footsteps echoed through the halls as they climbed the stairs. Hearing, the noise, the two girls decided to crawl. It was slower, but much safer.
"I wonder what that was about," said Ella. "It was obviously something important. I don't know about you, but I wish I knew what they were saying. It was just so odd, teachers don't have meetings like that, at least not in the middle of the night…"
"I do too, but right now we need to find Fred and George," said Sophie, "something's wrong with these Ears, and they should be able to help us. If we plan on finding out what all that was about, we'd best find them first. I don't have my original Ears anymore, and I know you don't either. We have to get these fixed before we do anything else. Oh, and we'd better drop off this boomslang skin, too. I don't want to think about what would happen if we were caught with it."
"Yeah," agreed Ella, "I'm sure brewing Polyjuice Potion is breaking plenty of school rules."
With that they headed towards Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. That was where their unfinished potion was brewing. No one wanted to be in there, not with Myrtle throwing tantrums all the time.
As they reached the bathroom, the girls were surprised to hear giggles coming from within. Since when did Moaning Myrtle giggle? Knowing something was up they carefully opened the door and peeked inside.
There stood Draco Malfoy and his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, doing something no one would ever expect out of the menacing trio. They were trying on lip gloss! Ella and Sophie tried their hardest not to laugh.
"Hmmmmm…" they heard Draco say, "I'm not sure this is my color. What do you think? Crabbe? Goyle?"
But his cronies were too busy trying on their own lip gloss to respond. There was millions of it! There had to have been at least 150 tubes of the stuff spread on the counter. Plus, there was a bagful on the floor next to them. It was any girl's dream. Well, any girl's but Ella's and Sophie's, there was no way they would waste their time with that stuff when there was an adventure to be had. Or a prank to play.
With their hands over their mouths to stifle the laughter, Ella and Sophie watched as Malfoy strutted up and down the room like a runway model, blowing kisses to imaginary fans. "Yes, yes, I know, darling," he exclaimed. "I am the most beautiful person in the whole world." Then he plucked an imaginary pen and notepad out of the air and proceeded to sign autographs.
"To my most adoring fan," he said dramatically. "Much love, Draco Malfoy." Then he signed his name with a flourish and blew more kisses.
That was when a giggle escaped Sophie. Ella hurried to stifle it, but she was too late. It rang across the bathroom, making all three boys jump.
"RUN!" screamed Sophie. The twins took off running; Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle close behind.
The girls ran madly, knocking over quite a few things on the way, until they got to the Ravenclaw common room and ducked inside screaming the password.
"We'd better hide," said Ella, "I'm sure they heard the password, they were right behind us."
"Well, they wouldn't have heard it if you hadn't screamed it like that," Sophie responded as they hid behind a giant plant in the corner (their Head of House being good friends with Professor Sprout had its advantages).
To their surprise, it wasn't the boys who stepped in the common room, but Professor Snape. He looked around the room menacingly. It was as though he knew they were there, but not quite sure where. He began searching the room immediately, knocking over chairs and throwing pillows. A loud boom filled the air as he reached the twins' hiding place.
Disgusted, he turned around, and went to find the source of the boom, cursing as he went.
The twins waited a few moments and went to investigate themselves; they were sure that Fred and George were responsible for whatever made that noise. And they had to talk to those two.