Disclaimer: Though I hope to have characters of my own to write about someday, this is NOT that day. So if you don't want to read of my writing about other people's characters, there's a back button somewhere on the screen. Use it.
This is AU in that Harry meets the twins in London, rather than his first Weasley meeting being Ron on the train. At this point, I think it would be a good idea to say that the divergences could get wild from here on, so some canon beliefs might just go the way of the dodo.
What if?
"Well, to completely change the subject," Bole smirked as the cluster in green and silver passed members of the other Houses, and ignored the glares, "What exactly is the point of Weasley-dee and Weasley-"
Harry sputtered, "You've read that book?"
"Thought it was a Muggle piece, didn't you?" Malfoy smirked.
The dark-haired boy refrained from responding. He was saved by Derrick's retort of, "He was Muggle-raised, of course he didn't know that that loon had published the book trying to inform them of our existence."
"How exactly does that work?" Harry asked. "That's, it's,-"
"The girl, Alice was a nickname for his niece," Warrington contributed, "He wrote about her favorite Magical creature, the Jabberwocky, and like a fool, didn't keep a proper eye on the poem. A Muggle spotted it and next thing you know we've got Ministries trying to cover it back up."
"Luckily, someone spread the rumors of it being a mathematical fiction or something like that, and they decided to love it to pieces." Flint chuckled.
"Oh." The brunet Second Year blinked.
"As I was saying, what's the point of those two claiming you as their triplet?" Bole poked his finger to within inches of the shorter student's nose.
"Emotionally, I guess, they've adopted me, and frankly, I'd rather be the triplet for them, than Ron's twin," shrugging and looking at the twins in question, he missed the shudders given by the rest of his House.
"Good point, Potter," Flint gently steered his Seeker to a seat at the Slytherin table.
Everyone settled in to eating. Luckly, the other Houses seemed content to feed their faces at this point in the day, rather than glaring at a green-eyed Slytherin. It was quiet enough that Harry actually finished a meal this time, before it was disrupted.
"Wood, what are you doing here?" Flint half-snarled at the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain.
"I heard Percy was offering to tutor Potter in specific, but was willing to take on other students. I just thought I'd offer the same. I'm better in Defense and Transfiguration, but I'm a passable teacher when it comes to Astronomy." The Sixth Year responded. "I'm a bit on the busy side, but the list shouldn't be too hard to work out."
Harry's eyes narrowed, "I go almost two years trying to put this together, and get nothing. Now all of a sudden, after Flint tells me I have to anyway, people are trying to help?"
"Er," Wood blinked, "I didn't know it had been assigned. I just knew that Percy had offered to help, and since he can't help in all the classes," a shake to the older boy's head, "Then he mentioned the possibility of it being for others as well. If there's one thing about Percy to worry about, it's that he tends to try and take on more than he can handle."
"What's next, the Captains of the other teams?" Bole muttered.
"I can ask them for you if you like," the laughter in the lilting voice almost made Harry laugh.
"No, that's fine," the Second Year rolled his eyes, "At least leave me some of the leg work to do for myself, or they'll say something like, 'you can't say it's done because you hardly did any of the work.' And nothing's more annoying than that, believe me."
The older boy nodded as he turned to leave. A quick look around said that no one else was approaching the table, and so Harry felt it safe to sit.
"What is it about you, Potter that has so many people wanting to help you?" Malfoy grumbled.
"If I knew, I'd have tried to use it back at my relatives' house," Harry was serious, but most of the others took it as humorous enough to joke. Remembering the Headmaster's reaction to the mention of the House Elf, the boy felt he had to ask, "How many families have House Elves?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" Derrick was visibly confused.
"Well, I told you that a House Elf had shown up at where I live during the summer and used a Hovering Charm that I was blamed for, right?" Thanks to the nods from the Second Years only, he realized they'd been the only ones he'd told, "Ur, well, he gave me his name, told me why he'd done that, and held my mail. That alone made me wonder, and then all the odd events after made it worse. I mean, he said he was trying to keep me away from Hogwarts, because it wasn't safe. Then the passage between Platforms nine and ten is closed, then a Bludger goes mad. So-"
"You think that House Elf might be behind some of it?" Flint blinked, "It's not impossible. But if the Master of that Elf wants to see you hurt, its going against orders."
"Oh yeah," Harry nodded, "It was all kinds of confusing watching the little guy tell me something, only to turn around and try to slam his hand in my dresser, or to clock himself with a door."
"Hm," the older students looked at each other, as the Second Years did much the same. They continued eating, now in silence, for a few minutes. At about the time that Harry figured they'd dropped the subject, Zabini spoke up.
"You wouldn't happen to be able to describe the House Elf would you?" the darker boy's eyes were narrowed.
"Er," Harry tried to recall the creature from Privet Drive, "I'd say he only stood up to my waist, so he was pretty short. His ears stuck out at least half a foot from his head, I guess it would be parallel to his shoulders, hunched as they were. His eyes bulged out like a frog's, and were a bit wild, though I think they might have been blue. His skin was pale pinkish, wrinkled so much that I thought his wrinkles had wrinkles, and his arms and legs were twiggy. You know how you all joke about my knobby knees, well his are worse. Speaking of which, his name was Dobby."
Dryly Flint commented, "Up until you mentioned his name, that sounded just like every House Elf I've ever seen."
"Oh," Harry wondered if the others would say the same about goblins, and wondered if there was a way to teach them the differences.
"There you go again, Potter," Bletchley smirked, "Thinking up things I'm not sure we want to know."
"Is the way the House Elves here are dressed normal, or not?" the Second Year asked.
The general consensus in response to that was that they'd never seen the Hogwarts House Elves, so they couldn't be sure. In response, Harry wondered about the general treatment of the House Elves their families had, and they were so caught up in the conversation, that the huff that sounded behind the table sent all of them into a flurry of action. Harry was surprised by the number of students suddenly crowded around him, and the person who had huffed was just as shocked by the three Quidditch players suddenly in her face.
"Er, Potter," Granger hesitated visibly. Flint's glower was usually enough to scare people, but team that with Warrington, Landale, and the female Seventh Year Prefect, Lochner, and it made for a scary sight. He felt that her perseverance only proved the know-it-all was suited for her House. "I came over to ask if the book I lent you was of any use. I incidentally heard you all discussing House Elves. How can you so calmly speak of owning another sentient being?"
"Granger, I don't know what you're thinking, but stop it," Lochner snapped, "It's a mutually beneficial contract between the two species. Some families have forgotten the roots of it, and take the subjugation aspect too far, but that's no reason to call the rest of us inhumane."
"They're sentient!" the bushy-haired girl stamped her foot.
"The contract states, and I quote, ' House Elves will bind themselves willingly, to serve unto dismissal through the gift of clothing or death, a Wizarding family. This will benefit the Wizards, in that they can conserve time, magic, and planning needs for tasks less mundane than home maintenance." Bletchley's eyes were half-closed as he recited from a book he and Harry had found shortly before the Chamber incident. "The benefit for House Elves lies in the protection of the family being granted to them, the convenient access to House magics, and it will deter predators from eating their young.' End quote."
The girl blinked. "Which book did you find that in?"
Sighing heavily, the Slytherin Keeper pulled the text from his bag, and showed her the cover, "I'll be turning it in to Madame Pince the day after tomorrow. You can check it out then."
"I'll do that," the girl blinked rapidly, then spoke to Harry, "Let me know if you need more information, will you?"
"Forgive me if I don't quite trust you," Harry sighed, "I did last year, and look what happened.
Granger tinged pink, and shakily nodded, "Okay. Well, I suppose I deserved that. I just thought that the twins' research should be something the Headmaster knew about, so the pranks didn't go too far."
"They aren't idiots," the boy hissed, "They might pretend to be, but they aren't stupid. None of their pranks are meant to hurt anyone. They might pull one that pinches someone's ego, but that's only to deflate it down to manageable levels. The only people they might have ever consciously hurt, to my knowledge are Percy and Ron. I should hope you know why."
She stammered.
"And people wonder why we want to call him our triplet," Fred grinned.
"He knows our minds better than any of our other brothers," George chuckled.
Granger's eyes showed the whites all the way 'round as she dashed for her Table again.
"Did you want to meet in the usual place, Harry?" George looked at the Second Year surrounded by his Housemates.
"Or are we going to find a new locale?" Fred was busy sneaking glances at the Potions Master, and their actions told Harry what they wanted to do.
"I think we should stay put." Reluctantly the younger boy suggested, "If nothing else, because if we stay there, the Professor you're worried about won't take it as a challenge from us. If we move, he might."
"You mean us moving might make him figure we have something to hide," George voiced his take on it, nodding.
"More than we actually do have," Fred sighed, then nodded, "Okay. We'll stay. At least we know how to change passwords."
Flint grunted, "Don't count on that as your protection. If you're worried about our Head of House, you should know he's good at discovering passwords."
A raised eyebrow from each of the 'triplets' had the Quidditch Captain flash between paling and blushing. After a brief pause, a thought occurred to the youngest, and thus Harry said, "You know, I don't want to know. Not with the joke you told last year that I incidentally told to its subject. I think I'm better off not knowing."
The Sixth Year recovered, and smirked, "You told him? How'd he react?"
"Hardly at all, really," the Second Year answered, "He, Percy, and was her name Clearwater? All flinched and commented on your jokes only getting worse as you get older."
"Do they think I'm not trying?" the burly youth chortled, then grinned, "I'll just have to dream up one that's worse, and get you to relate it."
Mumbling under his breath, Harry stood from the table, gathering his things. He followed the twins to their not-quite-so-secret-anymore room, where they'd more or less converted all the prank materials into research. They did still have that one prank they wanted to pull, but right about now, making their own map had higher priority. Frankly, even creating the candies to allow lazy students to sneak out of classes had higher billing. Especially as some of those could be used in the prank itself. Which got the youth to thinking even more about those candies.
"So which of those candies were we going to work on next?" Fred's words made the brunet jump mentally, since he'd been about to ask just that.
"We've got the Nougats and the Peanuties worked out." George blinked, "I thought we were still working on the Pastilles?"
"Were we?" Fred looked at his twin.
While the two bantered, the shortest of the three dug around in their notes. After a bit of searching he found the page they'd left off at. "Well, for one thing, I know someone's been in here. The pages are out of order. For another, we were working on the Migraine Mashes. After realizing that the person who ate the Pastilles would have to eat something else to counter it, we decided to wait a bit on them."
"Really?" George scratched his head, "I could have sworn we'd figured on setting the Pastilles to only cause stomach upset for five minutes. Usually about the time it takes to get out of the classroom and a ways down the halls."
"I'm not finding the notes page on it," Harry called back, still poring through the pile. "You two didn't come in here and upset the organization, did you?"
"No!" Fred winced, "Not after the last time you snarled at us for it."
"We might have to waste today getting the papers back in order." The youngest New Marauder muttered. "The piles are completely trashed."
"I wish we dared say something about it." George whimpered.
"Do we at least have copies?" Fred asked.
"We do, but I'd rather not have to open those. We said we were keeping them for patenting purposes, remember?" Harry responded, having moved to another pile.
"No other copies besides that?" Fred sulked as he started in on a pile.
"Not that I know of." The Slytherin sighed.
By the time they had finished searching the piles of papers that were normally neatly labeled, the boys knew something was wrong. Not only were their notes on the Pastilles and the Mashes gone, but the pages concerning the cancelled prank had vanished, and even the observations Harry had made about the Dursleys were missing.
"Who would want those?" the orphan scratched behind his ears.
"Could one set of missing files be a misleading theft?" Fred suggested.
"But which one?" George responded.
The three whirled as the passage to their hidey-hole opened. As the Potions Master stepped through, Harry gathered his courage and asked, "Do you know what happened to my papers on the Dursleys?"
"This bolt-hole is painfully disorganized," Professor Snape drawled. "Are you sure they aren't amidst the piles?"
"They were organized just fine the last time we were able to be in here," the Second Year countered.
"List the missing pages, and we'll search for them more thoroughly at a later date. For now, it is close to curfew." The adult looked at all three adolescents in turn, "While Misters Weasley are fully trusted by the school to get around on their own, I don't trust the other three Houses in regards to yourself, Mister Potter."
"Yes sir," Harry grumbled mentally about suddenly being baby-sat all the time.
"Sir?" Fred took a chance. George's shock told the 'triplet' that much, "How did you know how to get in here?"
"Your map was quite informative," the man turned, "Though it has since been claimed by certain individuals for the sake of locating a person formerly presumed deceased."
"So you wouldn't know the password if we changed it, right?" Fred pressed on.
"Ask Mister Flint if you have any questions in that regard," the smirk on Snape's face told Harry even more than Flint's evasive action that he really didn't want to know. Judging by the twins' flinches, they didn't either.
Edging out the door, shaking his head, and mentally shuddering, Harry at first walked in front of his Head of House. Shortly though, after the twins ventured off in the direction of Gryffindor Tower, he supposed, the dark and usually quite grumpy man took the lead. A short pause later, and he chuckled quietly.
"Stop puzzling your brain into mush, Mister Potter," his very voice rang with the smirk on his face, "I have wards around the Slytherin Common Room, each of the dorms, and perimeter wards through out the dungeons. They tell me many things, among them being the presence of warded belongings. For instance, last year, you cast several charms on your trunk, in order to protect the items within, did you not?"
Cautiously nodding, the boy thought that had been common knowledge. Though he hadn't actively told anyone, the fact still passed its way around the House within a day or two.
"The wards on the rooms are designed to detect such things. Thus when, during his third year here, Mister Flint tried to ward a book he owned to only open for his password, I knew about it." There was a brief pause as they reached the Common Room, "And though they managed to discover the trick during their tenure at Hogwarts, the Marauders aren't the only ones to learn how to charm paper to tell one what passwords are used on various objects."
"Oh," Harry blinked. "A book?"
"Yes, Potter, I can read," Flint joked.
Yipping, the Quidditch Seeker turned to look at the Sixth Year.
"I will leave you all to your own devices now," Professor Snape left.
"Someone had to ask about passwords huh?" the older boy chuckled. "It's not as bad as I'm making it sound. In Third Year, I fancied myself a regular comic, but knew that most people would only mock me for my jokes. So I wrote them down, and that was where. I eventually got paranoid about people reading them without me there to coach them through, so I thought I'd lock it up. Go figure, eh?"
Part of the darker-haired boy wanted to believe the burly teen. The rest remembered that people who didn't want their journals read in the Muggle world would often resort to passwords. The trick is, why did they need passwords? But after a bit, he realized he was mentally tracing a circle with those statements, and derailed his train of thought.
What little was left of the night was spent finishing homework revisions, making notes of the day and trying to read ahead. When more of the page was spent yawning than retaining the words long enough to take notes, Harry decided it was time to turn in. It had been a rather long day.
So, now that we've made it through this three-part chapter (please forgive me for stretching it out so badly), I want to make a few things clear:
As I said up top, things as told in canon could go pear shaped.
The literary references aren't exactly on purpose, but apparently I miss having free time to read, so you guys get my allusions to play with.
I'm leaning towards the culprit behind the disappearing notes being Dobby, rather than Snape, Dumbledore, or Lockhart through various means. Just so you know.
I'm painfully behind at this point, and hopefully I'll catch up again soon. Until then, please have patience!
An observant reviewer informed me that I use 'brunet' too much. Thanks for the heads up. No, really. I mean it. If I hadn't had someone poke me about it, this chapter probably would have had more than the one or two times of it showing up that it did. If I start to switch over-used terms, please let me know. I'll scrounge up new phrases from somewhere, even if I have to look up archaic forms of address. (Okay, so that might be an exaggeration, but I hope the point still comes across.)
Oh, and I'm using the terms for the Snackbox as 'Puking Pastilles,' 'Nosebleed Nougats,' (canon) 'Pasty Peanuties,' and 'Migraine Mashes,' (mine). I will hopefully research the rest of the canon names, and add in a few of my own. If the Peanuties and mashes are canon or modified from it, let me know.
OUTTAKE: (or rather, author's mental outburst)
Author: (giggling at the potential comments about Flint's passworded item)
Flint: All right you, what's so funny?
Harry: She's laughing at the way people are going to take the thought of you being embarrassed to have Snape figure out your password.
Flint: It's not like that!
Harry: What else do you expect, with the jokes you tell!?
Flint: (grumbling)
Author: The truth of the matter is, that it's not X, R, or even, wait. That might be PG 13, I mean how many people actually want to see Flint in a frilly pink tutu?
Flint: IT WAS NOT A TUTU!
Author: (runs away, laughing)
Flint: (is going to pretend he was a Beater instead of a Chaser for a bit)
Sorry, I couldn't resist that one any more than I could the first one. Call it stress from classes and homework. Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!