The weekend brought Harry no respite from early mornings and nosy dorm-mates, though by midday on Sunday she had convinced the boys she was actually a miss-sorted Ravenclaw, only interested in classwork and studying.
"Harry?" She practically jumped from her seat when she heard Hermione's voice out of nowhere. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," Hermione said, suddenly bashful.
"Nothing to worry about, what's the matter?" Harry asked.
"Parvati wanted to ask if you wanted to go exploring today, but she was too afraid to interrupt, so I..." Hermione trailed off.
"That's right!" Harry said, smiling as it dawned on her. "We have some kitchens to find! Come on Hermione." Harry closed her book emphatically and pulled Hermione along to meet up with Parvati again.
What followed were several hours of discovering everything you could imagine besides kitchens, frustrating everyone except Hermione who seemed to be genuinely interested in the discoveries of shortcuts, secret passageways and hidden rooms.
"They have to be somewhere!" Harry grumbled.
"But we've searched this castle from top to bottom without even a sign of the kitchen staff. Are you sure they don't just conjure the food or something?" Parvati replied, equally annoyed.
"No, that would be impossible," Hermione added. "I remember reading something about it in the transfiguration book. You can't make food from magic alone."
"I mean you can still duplicate it, right?" Parvati asked. "You wouldn't really need much staff, just premade meals under stasis charms that are duplicated and distributed to the great hall?"
"So we're looking for a single person in this whole huge castle?" Harry griped. Hermione merely shrugged.
"I just said they could," Parvati added. "Dad always told us never to trust food that's been duplicated more than once, whatever that means." Hermione looked intrigued and was about to ask something further when they were interrupted by an unfamiliar voice behind them. They turned around and saw no one.
"Looking for the kitchens are we?" The voice said.
"What do you think George? Should we tell these little trouble-makers where to go?" The same voice rang out from another part of the hallway. Turning around again, Harry, Hermione and Parvati still saw no one.
"I'm not so sure Fred, have they really shown themselves to be trouble-makers?" The children's attention was drawn once again to a different corner, this time to a second disembodied voice.
"...managers of mischief?" The first one, Fred, added from behind.
"...Those up to no good?" The second, presumably George, said.
"You have a point, brother of mine," Fred stated solemnly. Harry turned around once more, now annoyed, to find two redheaded twins standing nonchalantly with impish grins on their faces.
"If you know where the kitchens are, would you just tell us already?" Harry asked pointedly. Fred and George merely smiled in reply. Harry sighed. "Fine! What do you want in exchange?"
The redheaded twins pondered for a moment and exchanged what Harry assumed must be meaningful glances and possibly some kind of eyebrow waggle code until finally nodding to each other.
"Ickle Harrikins!" Fred began. Harry was taken aback by him suddenly talking and by the bizarre nickname.
"We require your assistance with a prank," George continued.
"In exchange, we can offer you safe passage to the kitchens!" Fred finished. Both twins bowed with a flourish before speaking again, this time in unison.
"What do you say?"
Harry deliberated mentally. On the one hand, she really would prefer not to run afoul of any of the adults at Hogwarts. She also suspected Hermione wouldn't approve of her taking part in rule-breaking. On the other, they had been up and down the castle for hours with no sign whatsoever of kitchens or kitchen staff. Without the help of the prankster twins, about whom she had already overheard the rumor that they knew the secret location of the kitchens, they might never find them.
"Fine, what's the prank?" Harry replied, crossing her arms a little petulantly.
"Harry!" Hermione shouted. "You could be expelled!" The word seemed especially perverse to her, the way she shuddered as she spoke it. Parvati gave her an incredulous look and seemed to stifle a snort of laughter.
"Nothing to worry about, ickle firsties," one of the twins said. "We just want a little help, nothing will lead back to young Harry here." He put his arm around Harry, making her exceptionally uncomfortable.
"We'll have your golden boy back to you ladies in a right jiffy, we will!" the other added, also throwing his arm around Harry's shoulders.
To ignored protests from Hermione and Parvati, the twins walked Harry off down a corridor. She managed to shoot her friends a nervously reassuring look. They still looked concerned when Harry turned a corner and lost sight of them.
She was led through corridors, up and down staircases and through various secret passages until she had thoroughly lost her sense of where in the castle they were. When Fred and George stopped, they were in some deep underground area with poor lighting and at the entrance to a corridor lined with portraits. One of the twins mimed for her to stay silent before they all huddled up.
"This corridor is the last one on our list, but as it's the closest to the Slytherin common rooms, we could use the extra lookout," one twin that Harry decided was George, whispered.
"Just watch the entrance to the corridor here and come get us if you see anyone," Fred, until further notice, added. "You think you can manage that?"
Harry gave the twins a deadpan look as they turned around the corner to do their work. She merely shrugged and sighed before turning around to watch the corridor. Harry could hear Fred and George whispering, occasionally laughing, as they set up whatever they were setting up, but she just tried to ignore them and wait for this all to be over.
After a minute that passed uneventfully, Fred and George came bounding out, stifling giggles. Before Harry could voice any protest, she was swept up be the two who bolted down the corridor. In the distance she heard a boom and some shrieking and she could swear she smelled a waft of something foul, but before she had a chance really think about it Fred and George ran her through a curtain that looked like a portrait and into a secret passageway that led to a completely unfamiliar part of the castle.
When the three had made it back to the portrait of the Fat Lady, huffing, Harry finally remembered why it was she had done all this.
"Alright, I did what you wanted and stood watch, pay up," she said, disgruntled. Fred and George both grinned even more broadly.
"A deal's a deal," said one of them.
"Right you are," said the other. "Go down one floor from on the grand staircase in the Entry Hall."
"Walk the corridor until you find a portrait of a fruit bowl." Harry was just starting to get annoyed with their ping-ponging again when they finished in unison.
"And tickle the pear!" The two brother's laughed uproariously as they opened the portrait hole and entered the common room. Harry took her leave to the boys dorm. It wasn't too late yet, but for some reason, she was exhausted.
When her head hit the pillow, she was out like a light.