So… I'm planning on a longish story for this, covering the twins' first year at Hogwarts. I'm thinking, maybe something interesting happened to them in their first year too, just like Harry, Ron and Hermione, only the teachers never found out about their adventures. In any case, I wouldn't put it past them to get up to something interesting, and I fully intend to "record" that!

Disclaimer: I wish…


Dear Diary,

You're not really a diary, sorry. You're a piece of parchment Mum gave us because she said we needed to 'show our excitement in some way other than dancing on the table and singing'. We're not really sure why she cared, to be honest... It's not like we were wearing shoes. Parents... We'll never understand them. Anyway, we just thought we should get that out in the open about you not being a diary, so you don't get excited and think we'll be writing on you every day.

Right! I bet you're wondering why we were so full of life that we got banished to our room… It is pretty amazing. Want us to tell you? We'll take that silence as a 'yes'. We're going to go to Hogwarts tomorrow! We've been waiting for this day for eleven entire years of our lives (and a bit) and now it's here! Finally! We've been to Diagon Alley, got our stuff and our wands, which are awesome, and we're mostly packed (though if we've learned anything from years of taking the others to the station, it's that we'll have to go back for something). Now we just have to wait for one more night, before we'll be spending it in the Gryffindor common room.

What's that you're saying? How do we know we'll be in Gryffindor? Of course we'll be in Gryffindor, you silly bit of parchment! We're Weasleys. People say it doesn't really matter what house you're in, but we all know that's not true. Especially for us. We have to be in Gryffindor because we have to be in the same house, and if one of us wasn't it would be a mistake! But it's not a problem anyway, because we know that that's exactly where we'll end up. Because we're not just any old Weasleys - we're the Weasley twins! Fred and George, Gred and Forge, trouble-makers extraordinaire. If Percy-The-Prat-Who-Wants-To-Be-Head-Boy got into Gryffindor, so will we.

Maybe we'll see you again when we're proper Hogwarts students! Anyway, wish us luck for tomorrow.

Fred and George

P.S. I'm Fred - it was me writing. Oh, and George says he hopes you're pleased we interacted with you so much even though you're not even a real diary. Let alone something conscious.


"What if we aren't together, though?" said George.

This was a thought that scared him quite a lot, and Fred too. It had first occurred to them during Charlie's first Christmas holiday back at the Burrow when they were six years old. He'd told them about trying on the Sorting Hat, and about how shocked he'd been when it had told him he could fit in well in Hufflepuff, before in fact announcing that Gryffindor had really been the obvious choice all along. Since then, the horrible idea of being separated had grown in their minds, with the result that at least half of their elation at going to Hogwarts was down to the need to be sure, absolutely sure, that their worst fears wouldn't become some kind of nightmarish reality.

For the moment though, they shook these thoughts off. It wasn't really their style to be bothered by speculation.

"Hmmm… Ron and Ginny are going to be away from our influence for an entire term. That's not good…"

"You think we should give them something to remember us by?"

"Definitely, Fred. We don't want their minds to be poisoned by good behaviour and rules… Mum's sure to take advantage of our absence to try to drill her idea of manners into their heads." George bracketted the word 'manners' with his fingers as he said this.

"And of course, if what the others say is true, this is our last chance to use magic outside school without the Ministry on our backs until we're seventeen…" smirked Fred. "We can still play the 'we didn't know anything about it' card at the moment, and even if we aren't Muggle-borns, they can't disagree."

Five minutes later, shrieks were heard from Ron's room, as he discovered his treasured posters of the Chudley Canons were now magenta, his least favourite colour, instead of their usual shade of painfully bright orange. This seemed to Molly Weasley like suspiciously advanced magic for two untrained eleven-year-olds, but Fred and George stubbornly insisted that 'two wands are better than one'. Bill, who was of age already, was at a friend's house, so he couldn't have had anything to do with it. It was quite peculiar really, but when she tried asking Arthur how he thought they might have managed it, his ears went a very strange shade of pink and he started mumbling something unintelligible. Molly wasn't stupid, but she didn't want to argue with anybody on the twins' last day at home. She decided that the least mayhem would be caused if Fred and George were imprisoned in their beds and she declared the end of the evening.

Eventually, the twins were in safely shut in their room. Getting them there was an astonishing feat by both of their parents, but a combination of numerous threats and much yelling, mostly from their mother, managed it. Fred was lying in the bed nearest the door, rolling around in his tangled sheets and trying to work out whether that was really the best way to get to sleep. He kept half an eye on George, who sat straight against wall with one knee jiggling up and down. Also probably not the most restful position.

"Tomorrow there'll be other people with us. I wonder what they'll be like," whispered Fred.

"I don't know… Gryffindors though, don't forget. They've got to be all right."

There was silence, as the twins' fears about the Sorting seemed to creep into the room again. George shivered in his thin pyjamas.

"Cold?"

"Only a bit."

It was all the encouragement Fred needed. As much for his own comfort as his twin's, he crossed the room and the two sat pressed together on George's bed. When Molly came into the room in the morning, she found her sons asleep in a tangle of limbs on George's bed, Fred's head pillowed in his brother's shoulder. That was the last time they'd be able to do that for a long while. Hogwarts was waiting.


Author's Note: This was a horribly short chapter, but it was only really meant as an introduction. I doubt much of it will have any relevance later on, but I kind of thought it was important anyway to their lives, if not to the story as a whole. I want to do their whole First Year, like in the books, so I thought I should start at the beginning instead of leaping in straight where I'd like to! Another thing the style in this chapter is different to the rest, on account of it being pretty much just an introduction. From the first proper chapter and onwards, there'll be a lot more character interaction and so on. Also, most (if not all) of the other chapters will be a lot longer than this… If they aren't, you have my permission to hunt me down and tie me to my chair until I write more. Sound all right? OK.)