AN: Sorry this took so long, back to college fun, not. Anyway, as you can see if you check my profile, Harry lives. Yay! Let the fun commence.
Chapter 8- Laughing out Loud
"Right, that's everyone," Dumbledore said happily as Pansy stepped out of the fire. "Please remind Harry and the twins to come and sign the list before getting lost in each other."
"Yes headmaster," Hermione answered from where she was guarding the door, not allowing anyone outside. "Now," she proclaimed, waving her wand. "We are going to the library, no argument's."
"Is this about what we talked about earlier?" Draco asked. Hermione nodded, ignoring the groans surrounding her at the thought of studying. She tapped her foot and waited for them to stop, glaring at them all sternly. "Oh shut up," Draco scoffed. "There are seventeen of us, we could read collectively read the library in less than a week, it shouldn't take too long to read the healing section." They set off, Hermione leading the way.
"I suppose," muttered Ron.
"It's for Harry," hissed Ginny as she smacked him round the back of the head. "Now Hermione. I noticed you cast a spell on us, what was it?"
"A sort of notice me not spell," Hermione explained, already in research mode. "It will allow each of us to see what we're looking at but anyone we don't want to know can't it's so that Harry won't work out what we're doing and stop us."
"Very clever," Justin whistled.
"That's Hermione," Seamus chuckled as the crossed the threshold of the library, Ron and Seamus hesitating before following.
"Right," Hermione said. "We should split up to make it less obvious that we're all studying the same thing. I just need to charm these pieces of parchments to connect to a master piece so that we have all of the information in one place and then we can get going." She had pulled out what looked like a whole shops worth of parchment and began to cast a series of charms on each separate piece. As she finished on, she handed it to someone while they made sure they were blocking her from the sight of Madam Prince should she come down the healing isle. Slowly, everyone picked up a stack of books between three and five, depending who it was and drifted to go and sit in their houses in different places. Slowly, as time passed, lines and lines notes appeared on the master copy until, after two hours, the parchment was nearly two metres' long and stretching the length of the table.
As the everyone began to pack away to head down to dinner, Hermione sent the word around to meet up in the ROR about an hour afterwards to discuss things. As they left, they failed to notice that the bottom of the master copy ripped off, leaving the key information they needed behind.
"So," Harry started as he and the twins lazed in the conjured sofa in Harry's room. "Are you going to explain?"
"Well," George started, after they had shared a look and seemingly decided George would be spokesperson. "First, what do you know of Gemini twins?"
"I know that all of them are decedents from the original Castor and Pollux, the first documented set of Gemini Twins and they weren't really gods, just very powerful wizards who turned themselves into a constellation in order to stay together. I know that they were bonded together with a woman to make their bond socially acceptable because while incest seems to have become popular in the last hundred years, it wasn't back then and twins weren't really understood all that much. They had three sets of twins, all identical, with her and who were all Gemini twins that basically every pureblood is descendant from because of the intermarrying thing from the last few hundred years."
"So, just the history of them then," George summarised.
"Yeah," Harry shrugged, contrite. "But there isn't much on the inner workings of you lot because you keep it all such a close guarded secret."
"That's because of the chosen part," George explained. "In all honesty, a chosen is a person that both of a set of identical twins fall in love with, even if it is at different times, meaning that their in sync in that choice. But it will only ever happen once. Not even our kind know why, it just does. But back when it was Castor and Pollux, they were the first people to even actually take a person to be between them, as the chosen thing didn't exist back then, and most other twins were able to ignore their bond enough to blend in to society and marry separate people."
"So," Harry said slowly, "Those too created the chosen thing."
"In a way," Fred decided to continue, giving his twin a break. "They taught their children to find someone who could except both of them at once and to not care what society thought about them for it. They taught it to their children, and so on until it became ingrained into each set of Gemini twins magic to find someone who could except them both, together."
"And I fit this requirement," Harry said softly, leaning up to kiss them gently from where his head was on Fred's chest, Fred himself leaning against one arm of the sofa, George the opposite with all of their feet tangled together.
"Yeah, you do," Fred and George said together, goofy grins on their faces.
"But," Harry said, suddenly sitting up, "What about when I… I mean, you said it only happens once?"
"Yes, it only happens once," Fred said softly. "And it will leave us a bit… empty. We'll start to withdraw a bit and have mild depression and a load of other things. But," he continued, seeing Harry about to interrupt and play the selfless hero. "Not only is it too late to change it, it will have been worth it and much better than if you had said no."
"What do you mean?"
"Well," George began. "If Gemini twins get refused by their chosen, they kind of shut down. More often than not, they'll kill themselves to make the pain of it go away. So, either way, something bad would have happened and we prefer this option, no matter that we've only got a short time with you."
"You might not," Harry admitted. "It's just that because only one person a generation gets this disease, sometimes not even that, it hasn't been studied much. The unspeakable's have started on me, coming once a month to take samples and sometime test something on me. Magic has evolved a lot since the last case, they might succeed, they might not."
"So, we just have to hope."
"Yeah. In the meantime, I have some wicked ideas for pranks…"
"Harry, Fred, George," Ginny called, spotting them entering the great hall. "Down here."
"Hey guys," Harry said, plonking down with a twin on each side. "What you been up too?"
"Oh, we all went to the library and blitz through our homework," Hermione lied flawlessly.
"Ah," Harry muttered distracted by Fred nibbling on his neck. "Eat the food, not me."
"Your tastier," Fred muttered, even as he pulled away to eat his shepherd's pie.
"You lot are cute," Neville grinned.
"OH. MY. God." Ron screeched, catching sight of the promise ring that had found a home on Harry's finger. "You are mental, absolutely barking mad. Why would you accept? They demons, they'll murder you by exhaustion with all of their pranks."
"Are you finished?" Hermione shook her head. "Congratulations Harry."
"Ron," Harry said, face twisting into a leer. "I should hope your brothers can wear me out."
The whole table burst out laughing as Ron went bright red, proclaiming, "I want to know those details and keep it where I can't see it, please." They finished their dinner, heading up to the common room and just lounging around, Ron trouncing Harry and Hermione at chess. At the same time. Eventually, Harry yawned and he was dragged away by the twins.
"It's only seven," Ron muttered confused.
"Oh Ron," Ginny chuckled as they stood, using their absence to leave and run to the RoR. "That yawn was faker than Hagrid claiming to be a fairy."
"Oh, shut up Ginny," Ron panted as they legged it up the stairs.
"Sorry we're late," Hermione greeted everyone already seated around the room. "We were hanging with Harry and the twins."
"That's fine," Draco said, smirking at the look on Ron's face.
"I can tell you lot got here first," Ron groaned, looking round the obvious Slytherin inspired room.
"Actually," Pansy grinned mischievously, "Hannah, Terry and Susan were here first and Hannah told me that Susan and Terry created the room." The two blushed brilliantly, refusing to look anyone in the eye, though Terry accidently glanced at Pansy.
"Great," Ginny said, pretending to be put out. "More converts." She winked at them and they smiled back gratefully as everyone else groaned at her.
"Right," Hermione said, taking charge and pulling out the master scroll. "Hmm, that's strange." She pointed to the ripped bottom. "It shouldn't have been able to rip."
"Maybe you got the spell wrong," Theo said softly. Hermione shrugged, having grown up enough that she could admit that she didn't get everything right all of the time.
"Maybe. Now, Padma, do you have that list on Harry's symptoms." She handed it over from where she was comfortably cuddled up on Lavender's lap. "So, so far we know that he wheezes quite a lot, he can't even walk the staircases without getting out of breath, that he seems to get a different infection a week-"
"He's had his spleen, appendix and a kidney removed," Ron added. "Harry told me when I saw the scars on night. Oh, and he can't have a lot of potions without modification, like the normal scar removers."
"Okay, that goes on this list," Terry said from where he was sat on the floor leaning over the low table writing on another piece of paper. "Once we have all of his symptoms we can go through the other list and narrow it down."
"Right," Draco agreed. "He has to take a potion twice a day and has little appetite."
"But his appetite could be to do with his time with his… family," Ginny sneered the last word but Pansy was already shaking her head.
"He hasn't been back there in nearly two years," she reminded. Ginny opened her mouth to argue but Pansy carried on "It wouldn't continue to affect him now. Also, add that he seems to have intolerance to some foods, like cheese and tuna."
"So, intolerance to strong tasting foods," Terry murmured.
"He hasn't grown much and not much weight gain."
"He has to monitor his sugar levels."
"He does those weird floor exercises for something."
"Incontinence and joint aches, he told me."
"Ah. Maybe I should try some."
They continued to list everything they had observed that was weird about Harry, discarding some things as part of the war or his time with the Dursley's. Eventually, they began to go through the list crossing out anything that didn't match. Eventually they were left with four options, "A hormone imbalance, the magical version of Asthma called Suspirium, Organi Defectus and Tardimoriens." Hermione announced.
"God, I hope it's not the last two," Susan whispered.
"I swear there's one more that fits," Dean told them. "I remember reading about it and writing it down but I can't remember what it was called or any of the other details other than the symptoms."
"Maybe it was on the piece that ripped," Luna suggested innocently, winking at Neville who grinned.
"Must have been, can you remember what book it was in…"
Harry chuckled as everyone headed down to breakfast. As he took as seat, he subtly twitched his wand, gasping as his chair suddenly seemed to explode under him, sending him and about twenty other students around the hall flying up into the air. "Ow," he whined as he landed with a rather large thump on the floor. As everyone began to laugh at the unfortunate students, Harry flicked his wand again, causing another set of students to join them on the floor, Ginny among them.
"Everyone stand up," Hermione commanded, having understood what had happened. "There are airbags in the seat cushions." While most students didn't get what and air bag was, they stood anyway as Hermione pilled the cushions against the wall. She then sat back down as Madam Poppy rushed down to see if any students had been badly hurt only to realise that the floor had a softening charm to protect them from harm. She sighed, before laughing ruefully.
"Harry, Fred, George," Hermione yelled through the door to Harry's private dorm. "It's time for dinner!" There was some muffled thumping before an affirmative was called back. "I'll meet you down there but if you're down in ten minutes I will come and drag you, Harry!"
As the threesome straightened themselves up and headed down to dinner, Hermione and Ron were chuckling to themselves at the state of them as they sat down. They ate, chatting between, or in Ron's case during, bites of food about homework, Harry showing of the new t-shirt the twins had given him. Dinner swapped for desert and Harry grinned as, instead of reaching for the Ice Cream, he went for the plain cream. Suddenly, everyone around the hall began to shout or choke, spiting the ice cream back onto their plates.
"Fred, George…" Hermione said, glaring at them only to stop when she saw they had also taken some ice cream and were now struggling to swallow along with the chocolate sauce and banana chunks making the taste so disgusting.
"Very well done," Dumbledore suddenly said, standing. "However, could the prankster or pranksters please step forward to claim your designs." He was watching Fred and George, obviously waiting for them to claim credit but frowned when it did not happen. "All right. In that case, if I ever found out who orchestrated these pranks there will be a week's detention, with another week added for every further prank."
"Harry," Fred beamed as they skipped up to him in the common room. "We have something for you. It's in your room, come on." They dragged him away, everyone watching giggling think they knew exactly what the twins had for Harry.
Instead, in the centre of the room, was a trunk. "You brought me a trunk," Harry deadpanned.
"Not just any trunk," George grinned. "Once you add a drop of your blood, and the blood of anyone you want to give permission to have access to it, it will open to only those people. It also has a trap room so that if anyone without your permission tries to get in, they will end up in the room."
"Wow," Harry breathed.
"That's not all," Fred grinned. "It also has an apartment inside, sort of. It's got a kitchen, a living room and a bedroom with on suit bathroom."
"I love it," he declared. "I love you." He spun round, grabbing the nearest twin to snog the life out of.
"Poppy," Harry said as she was hocking him up to the magic draining system.
"Yes Harry," she answered, distracted.
"Can you teach me how to do all of this myself?"
"Well, I suppose," she said, looking surprised. "But why?"
"Cause, other than Neville, Luna and the twins, no one else from my friends knows yet and I want to be the one to tell them. They've started to research and I just know their following me around to try and figure it out. So far, I've managed to lose them and keep how often I'm actually in here a secret but they'll wise up soon." Poppy chuckled, before beginning to explain what everything did and how to set the system up.