Author's note: This story is a Christmas gift for an amazing reader and reviewer, Isabell-TheGiantPeanut. It occurred to me today that there are twelve days until Christmas, and since Isabel loves the Weasley twins, and a friend and I were talking about Peter Pan... Yeah, I kind of knitted them all together. I'll do a chapter a day, except I might not do one on Christmas day, because that would weird me out, and I'll be a bit preoccupied eating and opening presents and wearing pyjamas and listening to the Queen blather on about what a great year she's had, that sort of thing... The OC is Adeline Lestrange, from my fanfiction 'The Weasley Twins and Me', but I don't think there's anything that would confuse you if you haven't read it!

So I hope you're all having a wonderful first day of Christmas! This is just an experiment piece, so be sure to tell me what you think. And to Isabel, thank you so much for all the support you've given me over the past couple of months. You've helped me so much with the wonderful advice and encouragement you've given me, and your reviews never fail to make me smile. I feel as if I've come on leaps and bounds with your reviews, and so I just thought someone should say: you're amazing ;)

On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: a partridge in a pear tree.

"You know something, Fred?" George asked suddenly, looking around the little store in disdain. "This is miserable, but I don't even want to go home."

"War takes the fun even out of fun." Fred agreed dismally, rubbing his eyes as he looked up from his list of figures. "People aren't even interested in the shop anymore."

This wasn't entirely true; the twins still got a steady flow of customers, people looking for cheap jokes to distract them from the dire, charged energy that war with Voldemort had brought them... But Fred and George had been noticing that sales had gone down significantly... And even the bright atmosphere of their shop, the laughter and jokes of the twins, didn't seem to be able to keep the bleak atmosphere of the outside world from leaching in.

"Come on. Let's call it a night." Fred sighed tiredly. "We need to meet Adele and Angelina for dinner at mums before they send out a search party."

George hesitated, then sighed. Even he couldn't make light of their girlfriends frantic worry. Not when it was so completely and utterly well founded.

"You know something, Fred?" George asked, as the door closed with a little ringing sound and Fred turned the key slowly in the lock, wondering, as he couldn't help from doing, whether this was to be the last time he saw the shop.

"What?" Asked Fred.

"It's the first day of Christmas."

"Whoopee! Let's get a countdown clock!" Fred replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. George rolled his eyes.

"Come on. Don't you remember how we used to give people Chirstmas cheer?"

"By pranking them senseless?" Fred asked as they set out across the street, wrapping their cloaks tighter about themselves and keeping a firm hand on their wands.

"By pranking them senseless." George agreed, a grin unfurling on his face. Fred's eyes widened as an incredulous smile spread across his face.

"George." He said, his voice shaking with poorly supressed excitement. "I think we have time for a quick stop at the owlery, don't you?"

"Yes, Freddie dear, I think we do."

"Do reckon it'll work?" George asked. He was trembling almost as badly as he had been when they had played their first prank at Hogwarts... Then, it had been to set off ten dungbombs in the transfiguration corridor after McGonagall had given them their first detention...

"If it doesn't, I have no idea what will!" Fred grinned.

"Sod it all-"

"Let's do it!"

They pushed open the door, stamping their boots on the doormat, and yelling as they went.

"Alright!"

"Hold off the papparazzi!"

"No need to take that many pictures!"

"We're home!"

"Wait for it." Fred whispered, his eyes on the stairs.

"Wait for it." George whispered back.

"Aannnnnnddddddddddddd-"

"Fred!"

Adele whipped around the corner. All Fred took in was a blur of dark hair and a Weasley jumper before Adele crashed into him with the force of a boulder, hugging him so tightly all the air was squeezed out of his lungs.

"Can't- breathe-" He stammered.

"Where have you been? We've been worried out of our minds waiting, the clock said you left twenty minutes ago, and-"

"George Weasley!"

"Err- hey, Ange."

Angelina stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest as she took in the sight of the three of them...

"Err- Do I not get a hug?" George asked. "Or is this not the time-?"

"No it's not the time! For heavens sake, George, I need to be at my parents ten minutes ago!"

"I thought we were staying for tea?"

Angelina's lip trembled slightly as tears pooled in her eyes. "Mum's a bit- well, we've had a bit of a shock."

"Who-?" George asked, as Fred's mouth fell open.

"Mum's neighbour." Angelina whispered in a small voice. "Right next door, the dark mark and everything, and mum- doesn't want to sleep alone tonight, so I said we'd come and sit with her for a bit. Dad's just flooed me, he's not going to be home from the ministry until midnight, and Molly said it'd be alright if we-"

George cut her off by wrapping his arms around her waist. "It's fine, Ange. Course it's fine."

"So close to Christmas-" her words were muffled by sobs and the mouthful of George's t-shirt she'd just taken as she buried her head in his chest.

"Did you- did you know them well, Ange?" Adele asked, placing a hand on her friend's arm. Angelina looked up and shook her head.

"They just moved in a month ago, I'd never met them. But that's precisely what's upset me." She whispered miserably. "Is it bad that I- that I'm relieved? That, as much as it upsets me that they're gone, I can't bring myself to really grieve, when all I can think is that it's not anyone I know? That I'd rather a thousand nameless, faceless people died than risk anyone I loved?"

"Of course it's not. It's natural." Adele soothed her gently, biting her bottom lip as she looked at Fred. "I feel exactly the same, and- Fred, what in Merlin's name do you have behind your back?"

Fred froze in the act of moving his hand from his pocket to his back.

"Would you believe me if I said it was just a pear?"

"Of course I wouldn't, you idiot, hand over- whatever it is. And Merlin help you if it punches me in the face!"

Angelina gave a reluctant smile as she watched Fred hand over two perfectly shaped, beautifully green pears, each with a silver bow attached to the top. Adele examined them between her thumb and forefinger, holding them gingerly away from her as if she feared they might explode.

Molly had come into the living room, drawn out, no doubt, by the noise. Her face was drawn and pale, but at the sight of Fred and George, she gave a weary sort of smile.

"And what do they-?"

"Think fast!" George yelled as he jumped away from Angelina, the pear flying from Adele's hand to Angelina's. In a puff of brightest green smoke, both girls vanished.

When the smoke cleared, Molly's eyes widened. She turned to the boys, as if unsure whether to laugh or begin to shout.

"What in Merlin's name have you-?" she began...

"On the first day of Christmas-" Fred sang.

"My true sent to me-" George joined in.

"A partridge in a pear tree!" They finished off.

For there, on Molly's carpet, sat two pear trees, so tall and perfectly formed, with such ripe, juicy looking fruit dangling from their branches that they might have sat there for years. And in the middle of the branches, the partridges Fred and George had bought from the owlery hooted with a kind of vacant, annoying sweetness.

In another poof of smoke, two girls sat on the carpet once more, beside two partridges which scampered off into Molly's kitchen.

"You know." Said Angelina, as Adele coughed up a pear into her palm. "I think you might have misinterpreted that line a little. When they say sent, they mean like appeared on the office desk, as a sweet, romantic present from caring boyfriends."

"Not turn into using magic, exploding pears, so that said boyfriends can sit and laugh whilst the unfortunate girlfriend sits there coughing up pears." Adele finished off.

Still hysterical with laughter, George offered Angelina a hand up. "Welcome to the twelve days of pranking, courtesy of the fore mentioned boyfriends, which involves lots of laughing at unfortunate girlfriends. Woah, tone down the glare! Did I ever mention that you're beautiful, and that I love you? Because I do. Very, very much! You made the most astonishingly, breathtakingly beautiful pear tree I have ever seen!" George's eyes were wide and earnest. Fred's shoulders shook as he fought not to laugh...

"I'm going to kill you, George Weasley. Slowly and painfully, right after we've finished visiting my mother."

Molly shook her head, though she too was shaking with irrepressible laughter...

"Will you two ever grow up?" She asked.

"Somewhere in Neverland." George called back over his shoulder as Angelina dragged him away. Fred's laugh was cut off by Adele, who hit him with a pear.