Fred and George hurried quietly along to the girls' bathroom later that night, under Harry's borrowed invisibility cloak. George whispered "Alohomora.", and they slid into the bathroom. "Alright," said Fred, "Start making the potion. I'll be back in a bit with the rest of the ingredients." With that, he threw the invisibility cloak back over his head. George saw the door swing open, and close again quietly. He set to work crushing the graphorn horn, and was soon completely absorbed in his task.
Meanwhile, George was busy picking the lock on Snape's store cupboard. He knew from experience that if he tried to use magic on it, it would start screaming at him extremely loudly, so he'd had to resort to muggle methods. He grinned to himself as he heard the click of the lock, and swung the door open. He scanned the numerous bottles and jars, looking for fire seeds and chizpurfle carapaces. He spotted the carapaces almost straight away, and grabbed the jar off the shelf, but it took him a while to find the fire seeds, because they were right at the top of the shelfs, in a particularly dark corner. "Accio fire seeds." he whispered, and caught the tiny bottle as it floated down from the shelf. He grinned again, and quickly exited the small room, relocking the door once he was outside.
He hurried back along the dark corridors, revelling in the excitement that sneaking around in the dark brought. He eventually reached the bathroom, and was slightly confused to find the door ajar. He paused for a moment before pushing the door open. The room was completely empty of life. The mortar in which George had been crushing the horn was tipped onto its side, and one of the glass vials was broken. On the floor there was a scrap of paper. Fred snatched it up, and read it quickly. All it said was "Finish this first." He recognised his brothers scrawled writing, and knew immediately what it meant. George wanted Fred to finish making the potion before coming for him. Fred really didn't want to, but deep down he knew that they had to get the book open.
Fred was deep in thought, a battle raging inside him, when he was startled out of his thoughts by a loud shriek. He whirled round just in time to see Moaning Myrtle settle herself on the windowsill. "Finally, he notices me." she said. "Have you been here the whole time?" Fred asked. "Yes. No one ever notices me." "Did you see what happened before?" "Well, of course. I don't see why you're asking me. You were there." she whinged. "That was my brother." said Fred, beginning to lose his patience. "Well, your brother was mashing some stuff up in a mortar, and these two big guys came into the bathroom, and your brother didn't have time to fight them off, 'cos he was writing something, and they hit him over the head with a bat or something, and took him out the room." "Did you see who it was?" "No, they shouted at me, so I left." she huffed, and flounced back into her toilet. Fred knew that he couldn't just go wandering around the castle trying to find Fred; he just didn't have enough time. So, he reluctantly sat down next to all the equipment, and began to look through the recipe.
