I won that bet with Tatiana. Two days, and I was still there at Hogwarts, still even a Slytherin, though I was rarely seen in the common room. I only retreated to the common room at curfew and passed straight through to my dormitory. Tatiana technically paid up, but she cheated. She had found a recorded lecture in a library book, magically copied and pasted onto parchment, and left it on Snape's desk anonymously. I was almost certain he knew who really left it, but he publicly blamed me, berating me loudly for it the next morning at breakfast, ignoring those around us snickering and Tatiana's overly please expression. I wish I could say that public humiliation was the worst of my discomforts though.
I was hiding out in the library, deeper than before, when they found me. "Hello, Skylar," Fred said.
"Haven't seen you around much," George added. I eyed them where they leaned against opposite bookshelves. I had seated myself at a dead end, which meant they blocked my only way out. I tightened my hand around my wand in my pocket as I had whenever people came close in the last few days.
"How'd you find me?" I had specifically asked Madam Pince what the least visited section of the library was and hidden there. Somehow, I doubted the twins had suddenly developed an interest in the properties of potting soil when mixed with frog mucus, a subject for which there was a surprising number of books—apparently the topic had been popular in the 1920s, why, I haven't the foggiest.
"We've all got secrets," George said cryptically. "Though we've heard that yours have recently gotten out."
"Seem to have fallen into a pit of snakes, too," his brother added helpfully. I sighed in frustration. I did not have the patience to deal with more mocking right now. I had used up my quota for the day.
"What do you two want?" I asked. If they had something to say, they had best get to the point quickly and get out.
"We haven't seen you around at all," George said again. "Not in the halls, not even at meals." He paused before adding, "We were worried about you." A hysterical, completely mad sounding laugh escaped me. No one was worried about me; not my parents, not the teachers, not the prefects, no one. "Are you okay?" he asked point blank.
"No. I am not 'okay," I told them angrily. "In the last three days, I have had all my clothes stolen and replace with paper bags twice, while I was sleeping and while I was in class. I have been to the hospital wing five times, once for having half my hair shave off while I slept, once for being pushed down a staircase, and three times to have hexes removed. Madam Pomfrey and I know each other way too well, and Snape has given me detention with Filch every single one of those times." They started to speak, but I wasn't done. "And you haven't see me around the Great Hall because every time I come in to eat, I find that others are adding soap or spit or potions to my food." I took a deep breath before finishing my rant with, "So no, I am not okay."
They stared at me in silent horror for a full minute before Fred said, "I didn't realize it was so bad." My stomach decided to voice its own complaint at that moment and I blushed at the sound.
"When was the last time you ate?" George asked.
I was suddenly shy after my outburst. "Um, I snitched some toast and bacon from the Ravenclaw's table the morning."
"C'mon," Fred said, standing straight.
"Where?" I asked cringing back into my armchair. I didn't need whatever prank they had set up for the vulnerable, little Slytherin. I wasn't sure if I could even take it at that point.
"The kitchens. You have to eat sometime." I eyed them distrustfully, even as my stomach growled at me to go with them. George extended a hand towards me and I flinched.
"I'm just helping you up," he explained, drawing the hand back an inch, but keeping it offered. Very slowly, I let go of my wand, grasped his hand instead and let him help me stand. Fred picked up my bag from where it sat on the ground and George let go of me to pick up the stack of books I had left there. When we passed the front desk, he asked, "Do you need these?" and when I shook my head, left them at the desk.
"Where's Lee?" I asked as we walked down a flight of stairs.
"Not positive, but probably the common room," Fred answered. He explained, "We were on our way back from Quidditch tryouts when we decided to stop by and see you."
"How'd you guys do? Did you get on the team?"
"Yeah. We're beaters and were on the team last year so Oliver knew he wanted us back, it was mostly a formality for us. Didn't find any good seekers though," he added, sounding disappointed.
"Beaters are the ones with the bats, right? And seekers chase the little gold one?" They looked at me like I had just said I was from Pluto.
"Well, basically, yeah," George said uncertainly while Fred asked loudly, "How can someone sound so unsure about Quidditch?"
"It's not really a big sport in the US," I told them. "Too many escaped balls forced stricter regulations, so unless you're at least fifty miles from the nearest town, you can't play."
Fred sounded completely stricken as he whispered, "That's awful." When I looked at his face though, I saw that he was half teasing. "Don't you think that's awful, Georgie?"
"I can't imagine anything worse," he smiled down at me. I chuckled for the first time since the train ride here.
"I will never understand the male obsession with sports," I told them with mock-exasperation and they launched into a defense of the male species so energetically, I could barely understand it, but that hardly mattered. They were treating me like a friend again and I was grateful. They only ended their speech when we reached a painting of a bowl of fruit. Considering that this was a magic castle, I thought the painting's subject matter was rather dull until Fred reached up and lightly scratched the pear. The pear giggled and twisted until in turned into a green door knob. He turned the knob and a door I hadn't realized was there opened inward, letting us into the shiniest kitchen I had ever seen. A small mob of somethings came toward us and I stepped back.
"Misters Weaslies! Misters Weaslies!" they squeaked at us.
"House elves," Fred whispered to me before greeting to two-foot-tall, bat-eared creatures. Their eyes were huge and they all grinned ear to ear. "Hey, guys," he said to them.
"What can we get you, sirs?" one asked. "We has puddings and pies left from dessert!" they offered.
"Actually, guys, we're here for our friend. This is Miss Skylar French," he motioned to me grandly. "Skylar, these are the Most Helpful House Elves of Hogwarts," he gestured to them just as grandly and they all blushed and giggled.
"Pleased to meet y'all," I told them with a little wave, stepping up even with the twins again. They giggled even more.
"Guys, Skylar here accidently skipped dinner because she was studying so hard," George said, ignoring my look when I heard the lie. "We were wondering if you had any leftovers so she can see how good it was."
"Of course, sirs and miss!" the little elf spokesman said while two others ran off. "You's sits and we will bring foods!" He pointed to several long, very familiar looking tables. They were bare, but they were exactly like the tables in the Great Hall. As they led me over to the one that sat where Gryffindor's table would have been in the Great Hall, George noticed my look of recognition.
"We're exactly under the Great Hall," he said. "Before meals, they put all the food on these tables, then magic it all up to our tables."
"Cool," I murmured as we sat and the twins chuckled when I looked up to inspect the very ordinary looking ceiling too. A series little house elves ran up then, setting food on the table: meatloaf, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, and an entire rhubarb pie. One of them set three plates and sets of silverware on the table while the one behind him put three goblets up and the one behind her put a pitcher of pumpkin juice next to the goblets. They had each scurried away after delivering their dish, making way for the next one. The last one stopped to speak to me though.
"Miss French, it is not good if you do not eats. It is very, very not healthy for you, it is. When you is too busy to go to dinners, you call for us and we will bring you foods." Fred and George, I noticed, were trying very hard to keep straight faces at the house elf's squeaky lecture.
"Thank you, I will. What's your name?" I asked the elf.
"My name is Twiggy, miss," he said uncertainly.
"Well, thank you for taking care of me, Twiggy. I promise to call next time," I assured him.
"Thank you, Mistress!" He scurried away before I could correct the title he had given me.
"Very good," Fred said approvingly dishing food onto a plate before pushing the plate towards me. George was pouring me pumpkin juice, a drink I had found was surprisingly good; I would have thought pumpkin flavored drink would be awful, but it tasted like very sweet pumpkin pie and yet somehow went well with everything. "It always pays to be nice to the house elves. Besides, they're the most helpful little buggers you ever met."
"What do they do here?" I asked, watching them run around doing chores, occasionally disappearing with loud CRACKs.
"Everything," George said. "All the cooking—"
"—Cleaning—"
"—Washing—"
"—Laundry—"
"—Dusting—"
"—Fixing—"
"—Shining—"
"—and oiling in the whole castle," Fred finished the back and forth listing. "Mum always wanted one, but we can't afford it."
"If they do all that, what does Filch do?" I asked mildly.
"Bumble around after his cat," George suggested.
"Are they slaves?" I asked quietly. I didn't like the idea of these sweet little guys being slaves and I didn't like the idea of Hogwarts enslaving them.
"Not really," Fred said. "House elves serve wizards. It's what they want to do and it practically destroys them to be given clothes."
"Um, clothes?" I asked looking at him. I thought I had heard wrong.
"That's the only way for them to be freed, if their masters give them clothes." I looked at the elves again realizing that none of them wore any real clothes. They word towels, rags, and pillow cases instead.
"And they don't want to be freed?" I clarified. I felt like someone had filled my ears with cotton or beeswax or something; so many things seemed backwards.
"Right," George answered. "They like taking care of people. The most Hufflepuff-y creatures I've ever met."
"Huh," was my only response. Still watching the elves. I absent mindedly began eating while the boys helped themselves to the pie.
"So," Fred began. "What are you going to do about the Slytherins?"
"I haven't decided yet," I said turning back to them. "Tatiana is going to wake up with a purple Mohawk tomorrow for cheating on our bet, but other than that, I haven't decided yet. I'm still trying to decide which plan would be the most…effective." Destructive was another promising adjective to describe my current mood towards my house.
"Which plan?" Fred asked. "You have more than one?"
"I have eight, but it's not realistic to use them all at once."
"So you've been thinking about it!" I wasn't sure why this surprised him or made him so excited.
"Of course. I do have some Slytherin traits and I've been hiding out in the library for a week; it only takes so long to do classwork reading. I've been in there plotting since Friday night. What do you think all those books I was using were for?"
"Well what are they?" the twins asked as one, identical and vengeful excitement on their faces. So I explained what I had in mind. Some plans were too complex, some, I didn't know the magic for and would take too long to learn. In the end, only four of my plans were realistic.
"I like this one the best," George, who had been taking notes, said pointing the third bullet in his list. "It's the messiest."
"Think you guys could help me with it? I can't get everything done on my own in time."
"Of course," they grinned quite evilly, and I couldn't hold back my own smile.
"Alright. Food fight it is," I agreed reaching over to circle the listed item.
"C'mon," George said, standing and grabbing the remaining half pie and all our forks.
"Where're we going this time?" I asked, completely willing to follow.
"Our common room. We've got to work everything out before morning, don't we?" I looked at him blankly. Their common room.
"Am I allowed in there?" I asked.
"Nothing says you aren't," Fred shrugged. "Come on. If Percy catches us, he'll try to stop us for no reason at all." We made our way up almost a dozen staircases before stopping in front of a portrait of a very fat woman.
"Password?" she asked.
"Caput Draconis," the twins said in unison.
"Precisely," she told them then paused seeing me. "Wait, who are you?"
"A friend of ours. Can we come in please?" Fred said without hesitation. She gave me another very suspicious look before swinging forward and letting us in. The Gryffindor common room was much warmer than the Slytherin one, both literally and metaphorically. A fire blazed in the fireplace and candles were lit all around, creating a bright environment. The couches and chairs looked softer and more used than those in Slytherin's common room and the place was carpeted instead of tiled. People lounged all around, some studying, some just sitting with friends and laughing. It rather made me never want to go back to the Slytherin common room again.
"You have no idea how lucky you two are," I told them softly as I looked around. They looked at me curiously.
"Well, you can come up whenever you want, how's that?" George said.
"Don't offer that if you don't mean it, because I will take you up on that," I grinned over at him.
"He means it," Fred said. "And so do I."
"Thank you." I hadn't realized how much attention we had attracted until Lee walked up a second later with a very unwelcome expression on his face. I had to force myself to stand my ground and not to step behind one of the boys.
"What's she doing here?" he asked without preamble. "She's Slytherin!"
"She's here to help us prank her entire, stinking house," George said.
"To be more accurate, we're helping her," Fred corrected. Lee and the rest of the watching Gryffindors looked completely confused. I shivered at the feel of so many eyes on us, but I spoke up, needing to show my own strength. I wasn't about to let all these Gryffindors think I couldn't hold my own.
"They've been rather rude since finding out I'm muggleborn, so I've been trying to figure out how to get back at them. I made some plans and Fred and George offered to help." I paused before saying, "You're welcome to help as well, Lee." I figured that if I included him, he might be more helpful, or at least, less hostile. It might make a better impression on the Gryffindors too.
"Alright, what's the plan?" he asked with a small smile and I could feel everyone else in the room lean in to hear.
"Let's go talk in our room," George nodded up a set of stairs to the left. We started that way before he turned back to the room as a whole. "And maybe keep this quiet, huh, guys?" he asked those who had been listening. Several nodded heads, a few "sure"s, a "no problem," and the deal was sealed.
I stayed in the boys' room long past curfew as we plotted and I ended up having to sneak past Percy being distracted by a rule-breaking fifth year and through the rest of the castle to get back to the Slytherin common room. No one had noticed my absence, but everyone in the common room noticed my entrance. "Someone locked me in a closet," I lied to Audrey who had walked stiffly towards me to see why I was out past curfew. "McGonagall just let me out." While everyone laughed, looking at each other to see who had done this brilliant thing, I comforted myself knowing they wouldn't be laughing come breakfast.
The next day dawned kind of beautiful to me; I woke up to Tatiana's screaming. As I had promised Fred and George, before I had fallen asleep, I had waved my wand over the sleeping rich girl and magically messed up her perfect hair. For good measure, I had removed her eyebrows. Technically, this was advanced magic, but it had been one of those things I had learned as fast as I could once I heard about it. "You! You!" she shrieked at me, pointing a manicured finger my way.
"Tatiana," I said innocently. "How could I have done that?" I gestured to the sickly purple Mohawk. "That's NEWT level magic. I'm flattered though that you think I'm that talented though," I offered sweetly. She continued to shriek wordlessly and stomped out of the room. I heard catcalls and whistles and a "What the hell did you do to your hair?" follow her raging. I got ready quickly, needing to set my spell before the main mass of Slytherins went to breakfast. Exiting the common room, there were two others several yards ahead of me and I waited for them to get further away before setting the spell. It was a shield, very similar to the one I cast when they had thrown food at me. It didn't guard against spells, those were much more difficult, but it stopped physical things, including people. But like a one-way mirror in a police station, people could pass through one way, but not the other. I added one more special affect to this shield: it only stopped those wearing Slytherin robes. I passed through the invisible barrier going towards the Great Hall, but stopped attempting to put my arm back through from this side, but was completely unable to. I smirked, satisfied with my work, practically skipping away, just as the door opened and a small party of girls came down the hall.
In the Great Hall, I joined the boys at the Gryffindor table, people smiling at me and making room. They knew something was up to humiliate the Slytherins and they knew I was a part of it, they just didn't know what exactly was up. They were certainly looking forward to it though. "Now?" Fred asked with excitement.
"Not yet," I shook my head. "Wait for more of them to get here." I waited until the table was basically full before nodding to my partners in crime. As one, all four of us muttered a different spell. Early, before any of the rest of the students or teachers had come to breakfast, but after the food had been sent up, the boys had sprinkled four variations of a potion in the Slytherin food. The potion itself did nothing, but last night when we had brewed it, we had added our spells, a different one to each batch. When we said our spells at breakfast, the potions activated causing the food, every dish of which had at least a few drops of the every potion, to fly into chaos.
Lee's spell caused the food to yell insults at the Slytherins, some silly, some actually quite mean.
Fred's spell caused the food to launch itself at the Slytherins, specifically, anyone who had attempted to eat it, so of course all of them.
George's spell caused the food to bite them back, hard enough to leave bruises, but not hard enough for blood.
My spell caused the food to chase them as they ran away. As expected, I heard them run towards the common room, though I knew they would be stopped just feet away from their destination, able to see the door, but not reach it, due to the one-way shield I had set.
I joined the rest of the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws in laughing at the shrieking and terrified Slytherins as they ran from the Hall, and watched at least half the teachers run after them to attempt undo whatever had been done. "C'mon," Lee said standing, and nodding to me and the twins. "I want to see this before it ends!" We followed him, and two-thirds of the remaining students followed us as we ran down to the Slytherin common room, easily found by following the yelling that reverberated off the walls. Our crowd stopped as one when we found them, laughter ringing on our side, while yelling reigned on the other side, teachers in the middle, wands raised as they calmed the chaos. The potions were disarmed and the shield was taken down within minutes. The food fell limply, some sticking to the students while most fell to the ground.
"Calm down," Snape told the still whimpering Slytherins. "All of you go clean yourselves up." He turned back to the large group of us watching and said threateningly, "If I find the one responsible for this, that individual will be severely punished." His eyes scanned the crowd, pausing when he saw me standing by the Gryffindor pranksters, but finally passed on before he left, brushing through the crowd that parted around him. The other teachers followed him, but McGonagall stopped upon seeing me and the twins.
"Miss French," she asked in a voice that made my stomach drop. "How did you avoid the food attack? I do believe you were to only Slytherin to do so."
"I wasn't sitting at the Slytherin table, ma'am," I answered as innocently as I could. "The Weasleys invited me to eat at the Gryffindor table with them." Her eyebrows rose, I guessed at the fact that Gryffindors had interacted positively with a Slytherin.
"We noticed she had been skipping meals," George explained truthfully and in the most innocent voice I had ever heard from him. "Seems the other Slytherins were slipping unwanted ingredients into her food so much that she was avoiding mealtimes altogether."
"We figured if she sat with us, the Slytherins couldn't taint her food and she could get more than a few bites of toast for once," Fred added. I don't know if she guessed our involvement with this morning's 'mishap', but she turned to me.
"I will speak to the headmaster, Miss French. It will all be taken care of."
"Thank you, ma'am." The hallway had cleared of students and staff and we slowly walked back to the Great Hall. McGonagall left quickly, walking like she was on a mission and as soon as she was out of earshot, the four of us broke.
"Thank you!" I grinned as they laughed in victory. "That was the better than anything I could have done on my own."
"Did you see their faces?" George guffawed, imitating the more entertaining looks of horror.
"Skylar, I think we'll all get along quite well," Fred said putting an arm around my shoulders. "Looks like we finally found a good Slytherin."