A/N: Here is the repost (and rewrite) of the fanfiction previously called My Dad's Twin; I do hope this version is better. I'm not English, but I may use words such as bloke or mate... *awkward cough* Feel free to tell me when it gets unbearable.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling.

"Fred Weasley, stop right there!"

Freddie froze in mid-step. The eleven-year-old redhead let out an anxious huff of air and eased his cart to a stop on the busy platform, wondering if he should have just continued on and pretended he had not heard. He turned around reluctantly, attempting to project an air of casual innocence.

His gaze settled on the warm cocoa skin tones of his mother. "Mum!" Freddie half-laughed, forcing himself not to wring his hands nervously. He shifted slightly to the left and caught sight of his nine-year-old sister behind his mother. Roxanne had her dark-haired head tilted inquisitively, with her lips quirked into a knowing smile full of mischief.

Freddie tried not to scowl at her, feeling infinitely more nervous. Roxanne was rather smart for her age, and knew him well enough to know when he was up to something. Like right now.

"Don't rush ahead like that," Angelina Weasley scolded him, brushing imaginary dust off his shoulders. "Have you got everything? Your owl, your books?" Her warm brown eyes roamed over her son's cart.

Freddie tried to look as angelic as possible, but that trick usually worked more for Roxanne and James Sirius, Roxanne with her sweet, eye-crinkling smile and James with his patented I-Am-Most-Charming-And-You-Know-It grin.

Freddie looked as much like George as James looked like Uncle Harry, which made people, especially ones who went to school with his father, eye him with suspicion every time he shared candy with their children or got too near to a breakable object. It made Freddie wonder about the extent of the pranks his father had done that they'd be suspicious of even his children.

He shifted, hoping to Merlin that Angeline hadn't noticed the extra bag squeezed in the cart. He had carefully placed it behind his trunk, but maybe her all-knowing maternal gaze had caught onto it somehow. He inched his body to the side, trying to look inconspicuous while doing so.

Roxanne hummed at him, narrowing her eyes playfully.

Freddie ignored her in favor of slowly raising his gaze to his mother's face, and immediately looked down. He had probably failed at being inconspicuous, because his mother was staring at him expectantly, as if he should up and confess right then and there. He almost did, and tearfully at that, before realizing she was simply waiting for an answer.

Angelina raised an eyebrow.

Freddie almost twitched. "Yes, yes, everything's fine and dandy! You've checked my things four times last night too, if you don't remember."

It was a good thing she had not checked so well this morning after Freddie had sneakily hidden the bag, or else his plans with James for today would have gone down the drain.

"Hmm." Angelina looked at him with both of her eyebrows raised, her way of telling him that she noticed something was up. Frankly, Freddie ranted in his mind rather hysterically, if his mother hadn't noticed his strange behavior by now, he would have seriously wondered about her. "You seem jittery today."

"Me? Jittery?" Freddie squawked, desperately reaching for a completely believable reason why he was nervous. "Of course not, I mean it's only the very first day of my very first year at Hogwarts, you know! Honestly, Mum, who would be nervous about that?"

Roxanne's grin grew even wider.

Muttering something about how what he had said was completely, undeniably true and that he really was nervous about that particular thing and that he wasn't lying or anything and how Roxanne should stop grinning like a creep, Freddie looked around wildly for a way to escape more questions that were jeopardous to his mission.

He sucked in a (hopefully unnoticed) breath of relief when he saw his self-proclaimed favorite cousin making his way towards them. "Oh look, Mum! It's James!"

"Freddie! Weasley! Fred!" James skidded to a stop in front of them, grinning brightly, with his dark hair as disheveled as always. He marched to Freddie, took hold of his arm, and said to Angelina in a visible effort to be the dashing, "Hello, dear Auntie! Mind if I borrow Freddie for a bit?"

Angelina smiled amusedly at him and nodded. "Don't get in trouble now, you hear me?"

The edges of Freddie's lips quirked up. "Yes, ma'am!" He went as far as mock-saluting her with a grin, feeling much better now that his partner-in-crime was by his side.

James nodded vigorously, his eyes shining. "We'll get in no trouble!" He leaned towards Freddie and whispered through the corner of his mouth, "If we're lucky."

Freddie grinned at him and pushed his cart off the platform. James led him to a compartment near the middle of the Express, where he had already unloaded his items.

Attempting to be helpful, James grabbed the cage of Freddie's dozing owl, Alma, setting it down rather roughly. Alma hooted, disgruntled, waking up from her nap. Freddie made a face at James as he dragged his trunk up the steps and inside the small compartment.

As Freddie put his trunk in the corner, James stuck his head out the compartment door, making sure nobody looked like they were planning to eavesdrop.

Freddie rolled his eyes in a way that could have given their Aunt Hermione a run for her money, doubting that anybody on the Express actually suspected them of mischievous doings this early on. And besides, Freddie thought, even if they did, not much could stop James and him when they both got going.

James slammed the door and turned around, satisfied. "Have you got everything?" he asked as he dropped next to Freddie, his boyish voice eager.

"If you were any more excited," Freddie mused aloud thoughtfully,"you'd be bouncing up and down."

James exasperatedly blew a raspberry and nudged him with his shoulder. "C'mon!"

Freddie snickered, and then nodded, holding up a black rucksack with a flourish. "Nicked directly from Dad's storage room!" he declared proudly. He loosened the string with a wide grin and let James bask in the glow of all the pranking materials at their possession.

"Directly?" James stared at the bag and then back at him incredulously. "How'd you get through the―"

"Heh," Freddie said, his cheeks flushing a bit. He scratched the back of his head. "Let's not talk about that." And they would never, ever talk about that, he vowed silently.

James narrowed his eyes. After a second, he crossed his arms, too. "Freddie."

Freddie smiled back triumphantly. "You're not wearing Rose's spectacles. That look won't work on me, James."

James huffed in chagrin and said, "You're just intimidated by her and her glasses of doom." He uncrossed his arms with something akin to a pout. "If I had her face you'd cow."

"Honestly James, if you had her face, I would be very scared."

James sighed loudly, sounding very put upon, and tugged on Freddie's arm. "Ready for this, mate?"

Freddie took a minute to answer as he considered whether to tell the truth. "No," he admitted. "This is the biggest thing we've ever done―"

"Bigger than the Diagon Alley frog explosion?" James asked incredulously. "You can't mean that!"

"Okay, very nearly the biggest thing we've ever done," Freddie amended apologetically, because forgetting the Diagon Alley explosion was nearly unforgivable. "And don't forget Albus almost died that time."

James snickered. "No, I told you, you only thought he was dying."

"He swallowed one! For all I knew it closed off his air pipe or something!" Freddie exclaimed. Then he stood up, letting James grab the rucksack and dig through it. "Mum's going to kill me for this. I'll be grounded for weeks!" He scrunched up his eyebrows, disgruntled as he contemplated his mother's reaction to what they were about to do. Torn between his life or his fun. Life or fun, life or fun..

It really was hard to choose.

James smacked his shoulder lightly, smiling. "Think of Uncle George! He'll mellow her out just fine."

Freddie stopped. He seemed to mull it over, but he was smiling. "Right."

Minutes later, Freddie and James hopped down the train steps wearing matching, wicked grins. Just as they caught sigh of Freddie's family, screams and shouts erupted from behind them. They glanced at each other with delighted expressions and walked faster.

Freddie's mother whipped around from her conversation with George, one of her hands flying to her chest when she saw a few girls run out of the Express covered in sticky, flashing slime, screaming bloody murder. A magically enhanced rubber bat kept swinging around, unrelentingly whacking people on their heads. Plastic snakes slithered in and out of the train windows, and a boy came out, yelling obscenities, covered in rubber spiders.

As Freddie and James looked back to admire their work, they could hear Roxanne laugh and say something about Uncle Ron. George was speaking in a vaguely delighted tone, "That's― It's― Those're mine!"

Angelina's eyes landed on her son.

"Ah, Mum!" Freddie smiled sunnily at her, looking for all the world as innocent as could be. He didn't feel guilty about lying now that it was very obvious he was one of the culprits, and thus was easily playing his part.

Why, Fred Weasley? About yea high, freckled face, red hair? No, he had nothing to do with the commotion behind him. Nothing!

"Freddie, is this your doing?" Angelina asked him, very slowly.

"Did you prank the entire train?" Roxanne asked with a bright grin, her expression a mixture of amusement and pride. It seemed to her that there was no way on earth that he couldn't have done it, and Freddie felt quite satisfied at that. But then he blinked, realizing that they weren't even blaming the person smugly smiling next to him.

"James is right here, you two! He's obviously the guilty one here, look, just look at his face!"

"My face looks perfectly fine," James said loftily, pretending to look affronted. "And what are you pointing that finger at me for? It could've been anyone!"

"You're right," Freddie said, looking horrified. "It could have been―" He pointed at Roxanne. "Dad!" He gasped in betrayal.

"Or Roxanne!" James pointed at Angelina.

"Even Mum!" Fred pointed at George.

They glanced at each other and barely restrained from cackling.

"Oh, you two―!"

George laid his hand on Angelina's shoulder, interrupting her incoming tirade with a lopsided grin. She paused for a bit, taking in his expression. Freddie beamed at his father's grin, James smiled at Freddie, and George turned to both of them. "I take it that nobody saw you do this?"

They shook their heads earnestly.

"Good job, boys!"

"George!" Fred's mum gasped, but it seemed to the boy that she wasn't angry anymore. She glanced at Freddie with a knowing look, one that made his smile falter for a few seconds. But then he kept smiling and pretended not to notice, listening to his dad talk about how he'd made some of the pranks.

"It was because of your Uncle Ron, you know he's been afraid of spiders for so long. During our third year, the first ever Spider Scrabbler for the Creepy Crawlies collection..."

Freddie looked happily on as his dad go on, his face lighting up as he reminisced about Uncle Ron's reaction to the Spider Scrabbler gone haywire during George's third year.

The reason why Freddie was so happy was because his father was quiet, more often that not, even though many people said George had been quite a boisterous person in his youth. Freddie always did his best to cheer George up, to get a laugh or a smile or anything, because he occasionally wore an awfully strained expression that Freddie really couldn't handle.

Sometimes, during one of George's worse days, Freddie received a parody of a smile so wobbly even Roxanne looked like she wanted to blurt out jokes. Freddie had realized long ago that, during spontaneous moments of making pranks and laughter, George seemed more alive, more genuine.

His mother understood that, somehow, which was why he got away with most of what he did with only a stern word or two.

George checked his watch, raising his eyebrows. "Hm. It's almost time for you two to go."

Angelina looked at James with a smile. "Have you said goodbye to your family?"

James nodded. "Three times, in fact. I kept running into them when I was looking for your son over here." He nudged Freddie on the arm, smirking a little. Freddie nudged back.

Angelina gently pushed Freddie's sister towards their direction. Roxanne ran to hug James, then Fredied. "I'll be sure to keep them laughing while you're gone, promise," Roxanne whispered as Fred pulled away from her embrace.

He couldn't help but laugh brightly. "Good luck with that."

She scrunched up her eyes in a smile and stepped back to their parents.

"Well..." Fred looked at them. "Bye!" He hugged his mum and dad quickly, though he hugged George harder. "T-Take care, okay?" Fred looked up at him worriedly. Looking at his father's smiling face, he hoped Roxanne would keep her promise.

George hugged back, placing a kiss on his son's head before the boy could move away. "Yep."

"Do you think Uncle Neville is going to be scary during class?" James wondered idly. He was lying on his back on the floor of the compartment as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do.

"...That is a terrible question, and you're terrible," Freddie responded in exasperation, leaning on the wall near the compartment window. His legs were propped up on the red seat, and he was trying to pry open a Chocolate Frog box. They had been on the Hogwarts Express for what seemed like hours, and they were quickly reaching unacceptable levels of boredom.

"Why?" James petulantly asked. "He could a vampire of a professor! He could be maintaining a soft front so that when the unsuspecting spawn of his friends come into his class he can revel in our shock and misery!" The last words were said with growing, melodramatic alarm, and Freddie's eyebrows twitched as he tried to stop a smile.

"Do you even listen to yourself?" Freddie asked as he finally opened the box. He placed a hand over the opening so that the Frog couldn't leap out.

"Ye-"

"You just voiced the possibility that Uncle Neville has the capacity of being a mean teacher, and that his niceness is all but a disguise."

"Well-" James paused, and thought about his words. "Well, if you put it like that, of course it's going to sound odd."

Freddie shot him a Look, at which James couldn't help but grin. He was getting better at those. "It sounded odd when you said it! It would sound odd however you say it!"

"Alright, alright." James moved his hand as if waving away Freddie's words. "Would you hurry up and eat that? It's making weird noises."

Indeed, the Frog had been jumping around in the box, making squishy, scuffling sounds. "Oh!" Freddie said. "It's half-melted."

"Eugh."

Freddie quickly pulled his hand away and popped the Chocolate Frog into his mouth before it could get away, and during the process got an idea fit for an eleven-year-old boy. He leaned over James' face with a chocolatey grin. "I didn't close my mouth," Freddie said childishly as he chewed on it, smacking his lips.

James rolled his eyes. "Stupid."

"Warth womf?" Fred asked, holding out some to his cousin.

To his surprise, James sat up and grabbed one from his hand with a glint in his eye. He opened it easily and started munching on it as loudly as Fred did, if not louder. "Mm," James said around the Frog in his mouth.

Freddie couldn't help but snort, and their eyes met, and their shoulders shook in silent laughter.

The train lurched, causing a boy to stumble backwards into the compartment. Freddie was so startled, he choked on his chocolate, and James laughed at him so hard he started choking as well. The boy took one bewildered look at the pair, gaping chocolate mouths and all, and jumped out of the room.

That sent the duo into another fit of chokes and laughter.

After Freddie had calmed down and swallowed all of his Chocolate Frog, he settled himself more comfortably onto the red plush of his seat. Something gleamed on the floor near the door as he did and caught his eye. He pushed himself off the bench and tilted his head towards it. "James, mate, that yours?"

James, munching on his second Frog, shifted on the bench to get a better look. He turned incredulously raised eyebrows toward his cousin, and swallowed his chocolate. "I didn't bring a shiny, feminine necklace, as you should very well know. Or are you trying to tell me something?"

Freddie grinned and snatched it up. It was an antique locket, made of all silver. The chain was thin, delicate, but as Freddie turned it around in his hand, he had a feeling that it was stronger than it looked. The locket itself was oval in shape, with a strange latch on the side. "Maybe the bloke who fell in dropped it."

James looked at the locket in interest. "Wanna see inside?"

"What? We should give it back..."

"Come on, you never know what kind of pictures are in these things. And maybe it's just a picture of himself, which would help, you know. Do you even remember what he looks like?" James wheedled as he moved to stand next to Freddie, their shoulders touching.

Freddie paused for a second, then shrugged. James had a point. Kind of. He started to fumble with the latch, if it could be called that, and narrowed his eyes in concentration. It was brass and old-looking, and seemed like a turn key that someone would find on a wind-up toy. There were two hooks that looped through a small hole and held tightly on the turn key. Freddie couldn't open it right away, trying to pry the hooks off it. James made an impatient noise.

Finally, it was unlocked, but Freddie didn't really know how he got it to open. He raised his eyebrows in disbelief when he looked inside. It was empty. "All that for nothing. My fingertips are still stinging!"

James tilted his head, frowning slightly in disappointment before noticing something. "Something's engraved on it."

True enough, right above the slot where the picture should have been, three words were inscripted in dainty cursive. "Ire adcum scire," Freddie read out loud. James grabbed Freddie's hand to pull the locket from his grasp and have a look himself.

A beat of silence passed, when not even the sounds of the train reached their ears. They had only glanced at each other before a blinding flash of golden light engulfed the whole room, making Freddie yelp and crash into James.

They stumbled, and Fred heard something suddenly rip, loud enough to be right next to his ear. He could only hope it wasn't James' robes, or else he would have to go to school with them flapping in the wind, his boxers in sight.