Disclaimer: I do not, nor claim to, own these characters and make no money from anything I write here. JK Rowling is the true owner of the Harry Potter world. (Of which I am so jel).
A/N: Hello! This little venture is just a kind of filler that I think could totally fit into the book series (well, not timeline wise, but you know what I mean). It was a simple idea that came to me when I realised that information like this is kind of left out. So, this is just what I imagine would have happened. Hope you agree with me, and enjoy it!
Holly - xo
(Also, I've re-edited it, so if you read this before 23/3/14 then it's a little different!)
-Thud.
-Thud.
-Thud.
-Thud-thud.
"Oh, crap," muttered the cause of the sound, as the source of it dropped out of his outstretched hand.
The young boy sighed deeply and started to look around the school corridor for the tennis ball he had dropped. He'd been bouncing on the ground as he had been walking, and was enjoying the rhythmic thuds keeping him company during his walk to the Gryffindor common room.
He hadn't had a very good day at all and it was beginning to wear him down. Breakfast had started out great; the pretty girl with the dark hair all in braids had smiled at him when passing the jug of pumpkin juice across the table. But then, in his first class of the day he had been rewarded a detention by none other than the infamous Slytherin potions master himself; Snape. The poor boy hadn't time to mutter an apology (for something that wasn't even his fault) before he had been deducted ten house points and demanded to return to the classroom immediately after dinner for his detention.
It only the first week of school and he had already been given a detention. Apparently: "First year potions do not explode of their own accord. Only an incompetent wizard would be capable of such a simple task." Therefore, the young boy left Potions in a very foul mood - which did not improve as the day went on.
In Herbology, he had been stung by a bee and sent to Madam Pomfrey, so ended up missing the class. Due to this he was then early for his following lesson: Defence Against the Dark Arts. However, he was to find the classroom still in use by some seventh years attempting to master defensive jinxes. This resulted in being sent to the Hospital Wing for the second time that day to have his eyebrows magically grown back.
Transfiguration, however, had consisted of a small glimmer of improvement when he had successfully transfigured his matchstick into the required needle. However, the moment was indeed fleeting as a short red-headed boy had gone charging past his desk – his robes flying haphazardly around him – causing the young boys masterpiece to go flying off the desk and down one of the grooves in the stone floor. The other boy was gone after a quick "Aw, sorry mate!" so all he could do was stare wistfully at the last place he had seen the silver glimmer of metal disappear.
All of these events had led him to act so carelessly when he had been sent to Mr. Filch's office (after being ordered to by Professor Snape when he had gone to meet him after a hurried dinner) to complete his detention, of whom he found to be of the same horrible calibre as the Professor.
He had been ordered to clean the collection of school cauldrons without magic until the entire stock pile was completed, and shining. Nobody even used these cauldrons as everybody usually brought their own, so it was fair to say that he was very annoyed that evening. He had only had it for a few weeks, but not being allowed to use his wand made him sure of the fact that he would never be able to live without it in the future.
After spending four hours with the awful Mr. Filch scrubbing and polishing, the caretaker had brought him back to his office to give the boy back his wand. However, just as Filch had opened the drawer to fetch the Ash wand, there had been a tremendous bang which came from somewhere above them, causing Filch to yell something about a 'Peeve' and run out of the room. This left the very annoyed young boy alone, with the knowledge that his wand was in that very filing cabinet in front of him.
It couldn't hurt right? He had been about to give me it back anyway, so it doesn't matter whether I just take it and go before he comes back, in a worse mood no doubt. That's settled then… I'll just grab my wand and leave. He'll probably appreciate me leaving anyway.
The first year student reasoned with himself that this was the best idea at that moment, so found himself on his toes peering into the drawer seconds later. However, to his delight, he was pleasantly surprised at what he saw over the brim: a magically enhanced deepened drawer, filled with objects that would fulfil any young boy's dreams. He concurred that they were all confiscated objects, taken from the club of Hogwarts troublemakers (which he was now a member of) over the years.
Not knowing where to look first, he simply gazed at the top layer of items and his eyes spotted his wand straight away. However, he did not get a chance at seeing anything of particular interest as the young boy involuntary jumped at the sound of the Hogwarts caretaker stomping down the stone steps. He grabbed the first thing he could reach and rushed away from the drawer, hoping he wouldn't be caught.
Shoving the round object into his robes pocket, he stood with his hands behind his back, heart thumping wildly, hoping that he looked far more innocent than he felt.
"Wha'chu doin' in here?" barked Filch as he suddenly noticed the schoolboy standing in his office.
"I… my wand," was all the young boy could muster up to say.
"Oh, righ'," mumbled Filch as he hobbled back over to his filing cabinet, but when he saw that the drawer was slightly open, he rounded on the boy and stuttered, "You! You didn't?!"
The young boy stuttered in reply, "No, I… No idea… just… I just want my wand back please."
Filch made a hrmph sound and whipped the boy's wand out of the drawer and thrust it at him. "There. Now scram. Curfew's not far, and you don' wan' to be found out of bed after hours do you?" he said as a wicked smile crept onto his face. Which, admittedly, creeped the young boy out more than anything else he'd seen so far during his short time at Hogwarts – and there had been plenty of weird already.
The boy gripped his wand to his chest tightly and it took all of his willpower not to run away from the creepy caretaker and his equally as creepy cat, who had hissed at him from her position behind the door as he passed. He walked quickly out the door and ran up the grimy stairs.
So that was how the young boy had come to find himself innocently bouncing the tennis ball along the darkened corridor, as he'd discovered it to be after remembering his sticky fingers earlier and pulled out the round object. Being from a wizarding family and all, he didn't know that it was a tennis ball per-se, but he had deducted that it was a Muggle object as he didn't recognise it.
After a few minutes spinning around in no doubt funny looking circles, he finally noticed the yellow-green fuzzy ball partially wedged between the stone wall and the bottom of a tapestry about five feet in front of him.
He made a small cry of relief and jogged over to fetch it. However, as he sat crouched down and reached for it, the ball suddenly disappeared behind the tapestry. The boy fell back in surprise but stood up quickly, a frown forming on his face.
"Hey!" he said indignantly and walked closer to the tapestry to inspect it. The young boy was trying to work out what had happened and the only reasoning he could fathom was that it was another one of the school's tricks. He had already gotten used to avoiding one of the trick steps on the way to the common room and he had stopped jumping every time one of the suits of armour scratched their helmet; so he was sure a thieving tapestry was perfectly possible in a place like Hogwarts.
The boy was not prepared for a reply however, and almost fell over again when the tapestry replied: "Hey yourself!"
"What the hell?! Who… what?!"
"Oh, untwist your robes and keep your voice down."
The young boy was further startled when the tapestry was suddenly ripped back, revealing a dark door-shaped hole in the place where the stone wall should have been. The young boy had time to make out two equal boy-shaped figures in the gloom before being grabbed by the arm and suddenly found himself in the gloomy hole in the wall.
"Lumos. Welcome to the Hidden Corridor Behind the Tapestry – make yourself at home!"
The young boy cringed at the bright light and blinked a few times before regaining his normal eyesight back. He saw that his companions in this absurd situation were the red-haired twin boys from his own year, who were both grinning widely at him identically.
"Uh, thanks?" the boy said, looking around at what he now realised was indeed a corridor and not a hole.
The twin holding the lit wand winked at him and the other twin nudged him and held up the tennis ball. He started to study it carefully, and even poked it with his wand.
"Hey that's mine!" said the young boy and reached to grab it out of the red-haired-boy's hand.
The twin easily held it out of the boy's reach and continued to study it. "We know it's some kind of ball… but we don't recognise it do we twin dearest?"
"No, we do not dear brother. Due to that, I'm going to take a wild guess and say it's Muggle?"
"I was just about to say that, but how clever of you," said the twin holding the ball. He stopped studying it and let his hand drop down to his side.
"Don't I always say I'm the brains behind our operation?" replied the one holding the lit wand.
"Whatever, everybody knows I got the looks."
"Wait, aren't I the better looking twin?" The boy feigned looking confused and held his chin with his hand – his wand hand – causing the light coming from the tip to cast strange shadows over his face.
"Oh, that's right, I'm the brainier one."
The third boy's eyes widened at the exchanges between the brothers; he'd never seen anything like it, and he was trying hard to hide how humorous he was finding it.
"So, are you Muggle-Born?" and suddenly both the twin's focus was on the other boy, who felt uncomfortable about the attention.
"No, I found it," he said, crossing his arms.
"Oh, looks like we got ourselves a little thief here, eh George?" said the boy with the lit wand.
"I daresay it does, Fred," replied the one holding the ball. The twins smiled coyly at one another.
"Well then, I'm sure you're well aware of what we think of thieves," said Fred (who the boy assumed which twin to be). Fred took a step closer to him.
Feeling where this conversation was going, the young boy's heart suddenly started to race. "I only took it from Filch – that surely doesn't count? And anyway, it was in a drawer with other confiscated stuff so it wasn't even Filch's to begin with." He backed into the wall.
"Did you hear that, Fred?" said George, putting his hand on his twin's chest to stop him from coming any closer.
"I did indeed. Pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Undoubtedly," replied George with a smirk.
Fred sighed and lowered his wand. "But I don't want to." He then pouted dramatically.
"Think of it as for the greater good, brother." George patted his twin on the shoulder.
"Dungbombs?" Fred said in a suggestive tone.
"Nah, no guarantee," said George, shaking his head.
It was then quiet for a few moments and the third boy in the hidden corridor was staring wide-eyed at the other two boys, wondering what the hell they were talking about. Before he could make a run for it, as clearly he wasn't getting his ball back, there was a sudden exclamation from Fred.
"Curfew! The cat!"
"I like your thinking, twin," said George, his eyes sparkling with the young boy could only associate with trouble.
"So are you in?" The twins were suddenly staring at the third party again.
"Me? Uh, no. Even if I did know what you were talking about, I wouldn't. I've just came from a detention with Filch and I don't plan on having another any time soon."
"But it's the first week!" said Fred with his eyebrows raised. "How in Merlin's name did you do it?"
"I didn't!" exclaimed the other boy. When the twins stepped back at the sudden outburst, the young boy coughed and continued. "I mean, it wasn't my fault. At least I don't think so… But that twat Snape gave it to me after my potion exploded today in class."
"Oh, that," said George glancing at his twin.
"Yeah, sorry about that," added Fred shrugging his shoulders.
"We didn't aim very well… and well, we didn't want to take the blame for it."
"It's not that we were bothered about getting detention or anything, it's just the thought of what our mum would do if she found out we were using spells without knowing what they did."
Both boys shuddered in sync with one another and the third boy found himself what kind of woman could distil that kind of emotion in boys like these and almost found himself shuddering along with them, before he realised what they were saying.
"You! You… what did you do to my potion?" he said, pointing a finger and waving it between them.
The twins raised their hands in the air at the same time.
"We already told you it wasn't intentional –"
"– and apologised for it. But we really couldn't take the blame –"
"– for casting an unknown spell. But really, we should hold our dear older brother to blame for this –"
"– as it was his spell. Makes sense for it to be a flame reducing spell, really, as –"
"– he works with dragons for a living."
The young boy had flicked his head between the two at their strange exchange and was growing more annoyed as he noticed them lower their hands and smirk at each other.
"So, you ruin my potion, cause me to be publicly humiliated by Snape, get a ruddy detention from him, where I had to spend four hours cleaning cauldrons without magic, steal my ball, drag me into a strange dark hole and make me late for curfew. If that's all, give me the damn ball back and I'll be on my way." The infuriated young boy sighed and threw his hands up in exasperation.
They stood staring at each other for a few moments, smiles slowly growing on the twin's faces before they suddenly walked off, moving deeper into the corridor.
"Where the bloody hell are you going?" the third boy shouted after them.
The twins stopped and turned round. George threw the tennis ball back at the other boy, who fumbled a little catching it because of the suddenness of the throw.
"You coming or not?" called Fred, nodding his head in the direction of the dense darkness.
The young boy stood there for a moment before shrugging and following them.
"What are you planning to do anyway?" he said to them as the reached them. They started walking off together.
"Get ourselves a detention with dear old Filch and inspect that drawer you mentioned. We've to introduce ourselves properly anyway," said Fred grinning at him mischievously.
"Don't worry, we won't get you involved if you don't want to be," said George. "What's your name anyway?"
"Uh… Lee Jordan."
"Well, Lee, looks like we're all going to be the bestest of best friends ever," said Fred.
"Where does this corridor go anyway?" said Lee glancing around at the darkness, ignoring Fred's sarcastic statement.
"No idea," said George and winked at him.
Lee couldn't help but mirror the grins that were on the twin's faces and feel excited about this pending night-time adventure.
As they walked through the dark corridor together, lit only with the light of Fred's wand, Lee smiled to himself - feeling so much more positive about his future at Hogwarts with these mischievous twins in tow.