Fred and George snickered slightly. The twins were supposed to be in potions class, but then again, when were they ever where they were supposed to be?
"This is brilliant!" Fred breathed, fiddling with a pulley. The idea of the trap was to release thirty bottles of ink onto the passing Slytherin Quidditch team, who would most likely be passing through this corridor on the way to practice in...
"Fifteen minutes," George said, checking his watch and then tugging experimentally on a rope.
"Do you reckon it'll work?" Fred asked, but just then the tapestry at the end of the hall was pulled aside. A girl, about fourteen, with olive-toned skin, dark hair, and black eyes entered the corridor. She looked at the identical red-haired boys, then up at the trap they were setting up.
"What are you doing?" she asked. Fred started slightly at the exotic, lilting accent. He looked at his twin, who shrugged. Looking back, Fred saw that the girl was wearing the bronze and blue stripped tie of Ravenclaw.
"Ravenclaw's supporting Gryffindor this match, aren't they?" George asked.
"I reckon we can tell her," Fred nodded, then gestured the girl over. She had a book bag slung over one shoulder and a book under one arm. She was very pretty, Fred thought, despite the fact that she was obviously three years younger than him.
"See, when the Slytherin team walks by here, completely unsuspecting," Fred explained to the girl. "They'll hit that trip wire." He pointed to a narrow thread stretched across the corridor at ankle level.
"And then 'splot'," George continued, jerking a thumb up at the precariously balanced ink bottles.
"Hmm," the girl considered, looking over the trap. "May I look?" The twins stepped aside and she bent down to pluck the string experimentally.
"Clever," she conceded at last, stepping carefully over the trip wire and moving down the corridor. At the far end, however, she turned back, swinging her thick wavy hair over one shoulder.
"I should let you know however, that according to my calculations," the girl said, hands on her hips. "That the parabolic curve the ink's path will undertake means that... well, basically it will miss the Slytherins. You should move the trip wire back a few feet. When you do that, though, you'll have to adjust the tension."
Fred and George stared at her as she walked straight through the door that was pretending to be a wall and disappeared.
"Who was that?" George blinked.
"Never seen her before," Fred replied, eyeing the offending trip wire. But that wasn't exactly true, now that he thought about it... "Wait a mo', isn't she on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team? She's chaser or something." George's eyes lit up as he placed her.
"Yeah, her last name's O'Reagan, isn't it?" George helped his twin undo the trap wire and string it up again further down the hall. He checked his watch. "Any minute now," he said. The twins took up their position at the end of the hall as students began to pour from their classes. Fred and George pretended to mind their own business, fingering a pack of Fainting Fancies.
Sure enough, the entire Slytherin Quidditch team walked down the hall on their way to practice. The shortest way to the pitch was the hallway the twins had rigged.
"Weasley," Clint snorted, intentionally running into George. The twins cast them dark looks and meaningfully held up the Skiving Snackboxes.
"You wouldn't dare," Clint sneered. "Everyone knows who's behind those." With that, the chaser pulled aside the tapestry and walked into the corridor, the rest of the team following. Fred and George waited for a few seconds, then gave identical, malicious grins as there was a sound of splattering and several shouts.
"Time to get out of here," George remarked, checking his watch.