A Lost Cause
-By Caspre-
Chapter 1
"OH YOU CAN JUST STICK IT UP YOUR ARSE!"
"Speaking of arses- Have you stopped shaving yours yet?"
"WELL IF YOU HADN'T TRIED OUT THAT HAIR THICKENING LOTION ON MY BACKSIDE-" Came an angry reply.
"Well, I had to try out the tanning dust, because YOU fixed the coin toss, so I thought that if I looked like a stringy pumpkin, it was only fair that you could look like Hagrid for a whil-"
"Please, do you have to fight?" Hermione said tearfully, no doubt trying to calm the boys down. The rest of Gryffindor House, however, stood in silence as they watched on, unable to believe what was happening.
This wasn't just any normal argument, it couldn't have been because Hermione was usually the only one who brought them up, not cooled them down. This was something completely unnatural. Gryffindor House thought they would have seen Voldemort doing a lively jig before they saw something like this.
"Well, BOLLOCKS to you!" Fred Weasley shouted angrily, brandishing his wand.
"And Merlins saggy left buttock to YOU!" George Weasley spat in reply, mirroring his twin's action.
A second passed as they faced each other, wands raised, brows furrowed and contempt glittering in their eyes. It may as well have been a mirror image-
POP!
Both boys realized that instead of their wands, they were now holding a lamp and a lacy bra. Both had pranked the other with the same piece of trickery they had both worked so hard to perfect.
"FAKE-WAND ME WILL YOU?!"
"YOU DID IT AS WELL!"
With identical yells of anger, they lunged at each other. The crowd were still too flabbergasted for any one to think fast enough to conjour a shield charm, and with only their fists and feet, the brothers began to leave as many imprints on each other as they had freckles.
Ron scratched his head. Ginny looked perplexed.
"Have they ever fought like this before?"
"Never." Ron said, "And it's been sixteen years!"
"That's a lot of time to bottle up some anger..." Ginny said dryly. Hermione continued to watch them, horrified but unable to look away.
"Oh- uh- okay, they've started biting- will someone PLEASE break them up?!"
---
It was just a normal morning at Hogwarts. It was the beginning of Fred and George's sixth year and Lee Jordan was trying to tease them out of bed for the first day of academia.
"You're going to miss breakfast!" He reprimanded, scratching his dreadlocks and watching the redheaded duo beadily. That being the extent of his material, he left the sleeping pair. Their beds, side by side, seemed to have grown even more like marshmallows over the holidays, and while it was so easy to sink into its squishy depths, it was almost impossible to find a way out in the morning. Already, there were copious stashes of their most recent experiments which they were hoping to pass off as Weasley's Wizard Wheezes produce, the bright colors unable to ignore as they spilled out from under the bed frames.
And just seconds before Lee and the other boys were planning to make their slow and sluggish exit to breakfast; there was a creak of springs, two swishes of scarlet bedclothes and in a flash of crimson blended with horrific matching pink and purple striped jim jams, the Weasley twins stood before them, the morning sunlight outlining them with a pastel gold and their flaming hair tousled.
"Come on, you lot!" Fred/ George cried.
"What are you hanging around for?" George/ Fred continued.
"It's breakfast time!" They chorused, and both seizing their identical robes and slippers, they charged for the door, nearly getting jammed in the frame as they attempted to squeeze through simultaneously. They left a group of silent and disgruntled boys in their dust.
Like I said, it was a normal morning at Hogwarts.
Together- how else? - Fred and George entered the Great Hall. They scanned the Gryffindor table for the girls they usually sat with, Angelina, Katie and Alicia, but neither could identify the endearingly familiar assemblage.
"We couldn't possibly be here before them..." George said suspiciously.
"Maybe they skipped? You know what women are like with-"
"I wouldn't finish that sentence, Frederick." Came a wonderfully familiar voice, one that had not become dormant in their minds over the six weeks apart from Alicia, the sweet, obedient little sister Ginny never had been, never mind the fact that she was older than them by a few months, and acted so.
"Alice!" They sang, delighted to see her again, as the night before hadn't been the best opportunity to catch up after the holidays, which shall be explained later.
"...See- Ya!" She completed her name, irritated. The abbreviation of her name never failed to aggravate her, which was why Fred and George never refrained from using it, of course.
"Why, where are you going?" George asked, and both of them collapsed into peals of giggles. Alicia snarled, tossed her straight blonde hair over her shoulder and returned to her breakfast.
"But what is this?" Fred asked theatrically, and Alicia's spoonful of porridge paused on its way to her mouth, "Why are you not sitting with the rest of the disciples?"
"Disciples?" She couldn't help but seem interested, even though she didn't want to give away that impression; she was aware of their increasing egos, especially since they had opened up their joint 'business'.
"Well, yeah, anyone following us-"
"Oh, spare me, I'm eating." She replied, disgusted, "And I don't know why I'm not, I'm just not."
Silence. Alicia slurped her porridge. The apparent 'Messiahs' shared a skeptical glance.
"You're just..."
"Not."
"Well done." She snapped, but Alicia was a terrible liar. In fact, she was so terrible, that the thing that always happened when she did tell a lie seemed unnecessary because it was so obvious anyway. Slowly, the twins bent over Alicia, a head at each shoulder. She held a rigid posture, looking into her porridge with such determination she could have paying homage to it.
"It's okay, Alice."
"Just let it ou-"
A horrific belch silenced the buzz of chatter in the Hall. Alicia turned redder than the roots of a mandrake and Fred and George grinned like identical Cheshire cats.
"So..."
"Tell us..."
"Fine..." She moaned, hanging her head in humiliation, "Angelina, Katie and me...we had a falling out."
This time the twins did not fake anything- they were truly distraught.
"What do you mean, falling out?"
"Is it just with you, or are all three of you mad at each other?"
"All three."
The twins cringed at the idea of snide and bitchy tension going back and forth not just two ways, but three. It was an incredibly undesirable situation for two men to be caught in the middle of.
"Well..."
"We'll...just..."
"You're not going anywhere, I found you guys first, you can keep me company." She cut in darkly, "You're on my side, right?"
Oh, goodness. The twins gulped. It seemed they were more caught in the middle than they realized. It was like they were tangled in the web, and it was Alicia's they had fallen into. Did their allegiance lie with her? Just because she had 'seen them first'?
"Well, whose fault was it?" Fred asked, stupidly.
"NOT MINE, OF COURSE!" Alicia practically bellowed, grabbing their robes and pulling them downwards to sit either side of her, flanking her. They leant backwards and made faces of confusion and dread behind her back as she tucked into some toast.
Further down the table, they spotted Angelina Johnson conversing animatedly with a bewildered looking Hermione. Unable to stop this dreadful turn of events, they watched her head twist towards them, and the world slowed down.
She caught sight of them, sitting with Alicia, and she turned extremely pink. Her brow furrowed, her lips turned downwards at the corners and her chest heaved with contained emotion. With a huff and a profanity they couldn't hear, she turned her head away with such vigour that she winced and tried to pass off the rubbing of her cricked neck as a simple itch. Fred sighed. George shook his head.
One down. They thought simultaneously.
"Alicia, are you going to explain why you three hate each other so much-?"
"-Or are we going to have to wait until one of you is slaughtered?"
But before they could squeeze this vital information out of her, two of the kippers laid out on the silver platter in front of them were lifted into the air and in unison, they were used to SLAP the twins across their freckled faces, leaving greasy fish oil smeared across over their left cheeks and noses, and the reverberation to rattle off the highest rafters of the Great Hall, as if their humiliation was being replayed again and again at their expense. Both Weasley boys reeled back in disgust and shock.
"That ought to wake you two traitors up." Katie Bell muttered as she stalked past to return to the Common Room.
"Well..." Fred choked, trying to scrape off what he could of the fish substance with all the napkins in his vicinity.
"That certainly wasn't the greeting we deserved." George completed miserably, wiping his face with the sleeve of his robe. Alicia continued to eat, a little smug.
---
Things did not improve.
When the class filed in for their first Charms lesson of the year, the three girls split off in three different directions, much to Fred, George and Lee's dismay.
"Take one each?" Lee suggested miserably.
"Okay, but…be careful with which one you choose…statistics show that at least ONE of them is menstruating right now." Fred whispered, and the three of them felt their blood run cold.
"I pick Katie; she's the one with the lowest blood pressure." George babbled, and the other two swore enthusiastically as he lunged for the seat next to her. She turned to him, enchanted him with a lazy middle finger, and turned back to slowly unpacking her bags. He sighed and knew that his predicament would be the easiest of the three.
Fred braved the dangerous wilderness of Alicia's desk, knowing that he didn't have much hope of leaving with all of his limbs. She narrowed her eyes at him, as if scanning him for any signs of betrayal, and turned back to face the front. Fred heaved a sigh of relief-
"Shh." She spat.
And Lee was left with Angelina. Although she was known for her calm exterior, Angelina could get pretty het up if she wanted, and certainly rivalled Alicia when it came to temper tantrums. Lee winced as she slammed her books against the desk and began scratching the date into her parchment with such force that the table surface underneath would no doubt have the exact same inscription.
As the lesson got into full swing, and cushions were flying everywhere, the three boys managed to send notes inconspicuously.
How long do bitch fights last, roughly? Lee wrote anxiously.
Depends upon the crime against the feminine laws of nature. Fred jotted back jauntily.
This looks like a long haul, lads. George scribbled grimly.
The three boys sighed, casting their enchantments half heartedly.
Before long, both Fred and George were hit by a note each. In Lee's slanted scrawl were the words:
Who wants to hear a plan?
---
Sound promising? Lemme know whatcha think! x
