A/N Hooray its chapter 2 finally! This story is a sci-fi magic romance story. I plan for it to be long, so bear with me on the slow start.
Bold= George's Thoughts
Italics=Fred's Thoughts
Bold Italics=Hermione's Thoughts
Chapter 2: The Weasley Twins (and Hermione) Meet Mercury
George and Fred were very confused about the mysterious telescope they found in the golden box. They were also confused about their new clothes and how to get rid of them. All three teens sat together in the forest with the telescope trying to think of ways to get out of the pickle they were in.
"Hey George, what are we supposed to do? It's almost time for lunch and we have to get back home." Fred said as he sat holding the telescope. He then passed it to Hermione, all she wanted to do was point the beautiful tool up at the day sky and take a peek.
"Let's go home for lunch and we can come back later and see how that thing works." He stood up, grabbed the telescope from Hermione's hands and walked out of the forest with Fred and the pouting bookworm trailing slowly behind.
-Later That Night-
Although Fred, George and Hermione had a wonderful lunch and spent some time at the park, all they could think about was the telescope. They waited as long as they could, but all they wanted to do was go into the meadow of the forest and look into the telescope.
"Come on Fred, George! Let's head to the forest." Hermione grabbed one arm from each twin and pulled them towards the forest in the same spot where they found the telescope. The twins were shocked at her behavior. How could the strictest rule follower out of all of them want to get into some late night mischief? George takes out the telescope from the bag he started to carry it in. He then gives the bag to Hermione who pulls out the remained pieces. She pulled out the legs of the telescope and gently placed them on the ground. George then attached the telescope onto the legs the way Hermione was describing to him. Fred pushed both George and Hermione to the side and looked through the eye of the scope. What he saw amazed him.
"Wow! George you have to look at this. I can see all the planets and all of the stars."
"Wait, let me see first!" Hermione shoves George away from Fred as he was about to take a look.
"There is Mars, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and even Pluto." Hermione moves over to the side a bit and her and George look into the eye of the telescope together with Fred standing behind them trying to get another peek. Before they know it they feel themselves being sucked into what feels like a tube. The Earth as they know it is no more, and they enter a portal of the expanse of the universe. Although they are nervous and scared of what will happen to them, they "ooh" and "ahh" at all of the stars and they marvel at the constellations they can see. Finally, they fall into a black hole and find themselves on a strange sort of Earth in the costumes they were first put into when they found the telescope. They slowly look around and what they see shocks them.
"Hey George? Hey Fred?"
"Yes Mione?" Both twins respond curiously.
"Does this place look familiar? And how did we get here?" Hermione looks around at the grayish ground and all the little holes.
"It kind of looks like the moon. Hey! Do you think we are on the moon?" Fred exclaims in pure excitement of the possibility.
"Fred, how could we possibly be on the moon! And even if we could magically travel to the moon, this doesn't look like the moon." Hermione responds snootily.
"Well, how would you know?! You've never been to the moon!"
"WELL NEITHER HAVE YOU!"
As the two friends continue to argue, George looks around the environment with a keen eye.
"Hmm...I don't think this is the moon. Look over there!" He points to an area just to the left of them. "Those look like little cliffs... this can't be the moon."
Hermione stops yelling at Fred to take a closer look at the area George pointed to. She also noticed little cliffs, and with her vast knowledge of all things intellectual, she realized they truly couldn't be on the moon for more reasons than just the sheer fact that there was no such thing as magical travel.
"Oh! You're right! I remember this from Astronomy class. Those aren't cliffs, they are scarps." She turns and looks at Fred and George excitedly. "You know there is only one place we talked about that has scarps." She looks at them expectantly.
"Why are you looking at me? You seem to be the expert." Fred crosses him arms moodily. George sighs and Hermione stamps her foot in frustration
"The only place that has scarps is the planet Mercury. So we must have been transported to Mercury."
Fred forgets their early fight and looks around with an excited glimmer in his eyes. "Mercury? This is so cool! The telescope must have-hey, where is the telescope?" Fred looks around, but can't see it anywhere. George begins to look too. He spots something in the distance.
"Hey Fred, look over there. Do you see that?" He points to an object in the distance.
"Yeah. That could be the telescope, but I am not for sure." Fred shrugs his should, not really caring about the telescope because he was on a freaking planet somehow!
"We should go over, that telescope is our only way home." Hermione ever the logical one begins to make her way towards the object. Fred and George start to follow, but they soon realize that it's hard to navigate past all the craters.
"Why are there so many holes?"
"These aren't holes Fred. They are craters. Mercury is heavily cratered, so just be careful not to fall in one. Especially that large one over there." Hermione points her finger at a huge crater.
"Woah! That one is huge! Look at it George." George glares at Fred who insists on pointing out the obvious at the worst possible times. Even though we are twins, I sometimes hate how childish Fred can be. If I continue to play along, I will never get with Hermione. Wait…where did that thought come from?
"Now if I remember correctly, which I know I do, that is the largest crater on Mercury. It's called the Caloris Impact Basin." They continue walking towards the object, and as they get closer they realize that the object is not the telescope, but actually a weird machine. They finally make it to the machine, and sadly they don't see the telescope.
"You there!" says a voice that seems to be coming from the machine. The three friends look around nervously then back to the machine.
"Um...yes?" All three respond nervously.
"I see you are new to this planet, yet you are not the first."
"Um…yes we are new and very confused. A telescope brought us here, and we don't know how to get home. You said there have been others? Do you know how we can get back to Earth?" Hermione fires off the questions eager to find a way for her and the twins to get home. She can see that even Fred isn't so excited to stay on Mercury anymore.
"I know which telescope you speak of...I have it in my possession."
"Well...how do we get it?"
"You must answer a couple questions first. Question number one: How far are we from the sun now on this planet of Mercury?" Fred didn't know the answer, so he turned to George and Hermione for the answer.
"Um...We are the first planet from the sun, so we will be the closest. We are .4 A.U. from the sun." George was confident in his answer. Hermione looked at George with surprise at his sudden knowledge. Wow, who knew he was so smart. I find his sudden intelligence very attractive. Wait…did I just think that?
The machine was silent for a while, but then it started to make a whirring sound.
"Ah...you are correct. But that was too easy. Next question: Compared to your planet Earth, how much is half the diameter of Mercury?"
"What do you mean by half the diameter?" Fred knew he wouldn't know the answer, but he wanted to make sure that they had a fair chance of answering the question correctly. He really wanted to get home now.
"He means the radius, Fred. And the radius is 2/5 the size of the Earth's." This time it was Hermione who provided the answer to this difficult question. She remembers this question from class. It was the day George sat next to her and he was wearing a new cologne that smelt like pine from his hockey stick, smoke from all the homemade fireworks, and the custard of his favorite biscuits, Canary Creams. She always thought those things were weird smells but they somehow just made up his wonderful scent.
"Hmmm...It seems like you know your stuff. The next question will be your final question. The ones before you have yet to answer this question correctly. Here we go: What is the atmospheric composition here on Mercury?"
Fred was confused as always, but he remembered hearing something about Mercury's atmosphere. Hermione was about to answer, but realized she didn't know the answer for once. They both looked at George expectantly, hoping he knew the answer. George was brimming with confidence he was sure he knew the answer. "That is a trick question! there is no atmosphere on Mercury." He stepped back, arms crossed, with a smug look on his face. The machine began to make a sort of laughing noise.
"Sorry that is incorrect. Too bad, I guess-"
"No wait!" cried Fred. "I think I know the answer."
"Hmm...I doubt it, but go on then."
"I think the answer is that Mercury has almost no atmosphere, but I know it has some Helium, some Oxygen maybe, and hmmm...what else? Oh yeah, and some sodium." Fred smiles, proud of his very first answer.
"Marvelous! You are correct! Congratulations on your success. Here is what you so eagerly seek." The machine whirs once again, but this time a little compartment opens up and lying snugly inside is the telescope.
"Finally!" They all cry out and reach for the telescope. Just as their hands touch the golden object, they are once again transported through a tube. When they land on the ground they look around expecting to see the grassy ground of the forest, but what they saw was a vast sea of molten hot lava.
Thanks for reading! If you can't tell, I am an Astronomy buff. I am enjoying writing this story, and don't worry some George/Hermione romance will occur soon.
