Disclaimer: All I own is this fanfic, everything else belongs to J.K. Rowling. No copyright intended!

Author's note: A Harry/Flora/Hestia pairing one-shot taking place at the Slug Club Christmas Party during Harry's sixth year. Mentions of Greater Good Dumbledore; and bad Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. Rated T for teen drama and some language.

Twins To The Rescue

Fanfic by Brockster550

Sixteen-year-old Harry Potter was having one rough time and he was silently cursing his rotten luck for his terrible life. He couldn't remember having any real good moments in life other than playing quidditch in his early Hogwarts days and even attending the Quidditch World Cup two years ago. It was like no matter how good of a moment he had, some jinx was bound to turn the tables on him and continue to give him the terrible life he experienced for as long as he could remember. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger never contacted him during the summer holidays, again, claiming that Professor Dumbledore said so, something that Harry knew was all talk. Harry put more effort into befriending Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood after he realized that they were better friends than Ron and Hermione by a long shot. To add more fuel to the fire, Harry was tasked with helping Dumbledore in discovering something regarding Voldemort's cheating death, and the headmaster who was going senile insisted it rather than asking Harry to help him and let him make his own choice. Harry knew the headmaster had been controlling his life to make him a martyr after a prophecy was revealed explaining that neither Harry nor Voldemort could live while the other survived. Part of the task he was required to do was to convince Professor Slughorn into giving him an unaltered memory after he gave the headmaster the fake one. After trying for the third time several weeks ago, Harry had enough and decided to have Dumbledore do it if he was so concerned with getting it.

'It's time for me to live my life on my terms!' thought Harry with determination. 'If Dumbledore won't properly help me in this task, I'm gonna quit going to him. This is my life and he has no right to run it on his terms.'

The raven-haired teen Gryffindor snapped out of his musings. He was at the Slug Club Christmas Party trying to stay out of sight because of Hermione, since she would've insisted he go back to Dumbledore. Harry was also trying to avoid Ginny Weasley, knowing about her obsession with the Boy-Who-Lived and how she was always kissing up to him just so he could return her affections for him. Harry didn't bring a date with him because most of the girls refused to see the real him (Ginny included) and the ones who saw him for just Harry were busy, or in Luna's case had a tendency to show up when it was least expected. Plus, Neville and Luna appeared to be smitten with each other, so Harry decided to let them have some alone time. Harry was sitting at one of the tables that was out of the way, figuring the further he was from the crowd the less likely he was to be seen (especially by his so-called best friends who turned out to be backstabbers). The other guests were having a blast and were very unlikely to see Harry, which was fine by him. In fact, Harry was coming very close to just getting up and leaving to head back to Gryffindor Tower. He didn't yet have any idea that fate had a surprise in store for him.

"Hello, Harry!" greeted a couple voices in unison.

Harry jumped in surprise and turned his attention to the source of the voices. They came from a pair of twin girls with brown hair in elegant buns (since their hair pulled back somewhat made it clear), blue-gray eyes, both were wearing green knee-length dress robes, black tights, black dress shoes, and they both stood at a height of five-foot-two. The girls were also carrying goblets of butterbeer (since the scent of the tasty beverage reached Harry's nose), with one of the girls holding another goblet of the tasty drink in her other hand. The girls appeared to be either fifth-years or fourth-years at the least, but Harry couldn't just ask that kind of question to a pair of twins girls who just greeted him.

"Um, hi!" Harry greeted back, though still confused as to why the twin girls before him greeted him.

"Aren't you going to join the party, Harry?" asked the girls in unison.

"I'm not entirely sure," said Harry. "Especially with my subpar dancing skills."

"I got you some butterbeer, Harry," said the twin holding two goblets of butterbeer, setting one of them in front of him. "You looked like you wanted some."

"How do I know this isn't a trick?" Harry replied. "I've already got a target painted on the back of my head and I wouldn't put it past me if one of them death eaters tried to get me to drop my guard. Plus, there's that rule not to take anything from strangers."

The unidentified twin girls responded to that by teaching Harry the revealing charm, allowing Harry the opportunity to check for hidden potions in his food and drinks. He cast the charm on the goblet of butterbeer before him, and luckily there weren't any hidden traces of mind-altering potions in the butterbeer, so Harry relaxed and took a sip.

"You can take a seat if you wish," Harry told the twins, feeling the need to suggest that as a way of apologizing for thinking of the girls intending to harm him. "It's the least I can do as a way of saying sorry if I sounded rude to you."

The girls each pulled a chair over and sat down next to Harry. The twin to his left introduced herself as Flora Carrow while her sister introduced herself as Hestia. The Carrow twins informed Harry that they were Slytherin students in their fifth year. For a second Harry tensed up, but then relaxed when the twins assured him that they weren't there to harm him. They even gave him a magical and life oath to prove it after explaining that the both can't be cheated. The twins even told Harry that green was their favourite colour, which was why they were wearing green dress robes. Harry was gradually realizing that there were some Slytherin students who were pretty decent people, especially after he remembered Professor Slughorn telling him that he was a Slytherin student when he was a Hogwarts student.

"We also know what it's like being around death eaters," the twins told Harry, keeping their voices low enough for only them to hear. "Our parents, Amycus and Caroline, are some of Voldemort's death eater. Even our aunt Alecto is a death eater. We've had to deal with parents and a relative being death eaters until we were nine-and-a-half, when we decided to run away to Orphan Alley. It's located just before the entrance to Horizont Alley. To get there you have to take the path to the right of the entrance to Gringotts. Despite not being apart of our parents' and aunt's lives since, we can't help but be a bit terrified now that Voldemort has returned to power. We're even afraid our parents will kidnap us and try to groom us into being death eaters. Something we don't want because we get treated like shit by them. We try to make an actual name for ourselves rather than being seen as the twins of death eaters. Malfoy and his goons have even threatened to get our parents here if we disobeyed him, since his father knows our parents and aunt. Malfoy even ignores the fact that we don't want to be clones of our parents, we want to do something we're passionate about."

"Oh, wow!" Harry replied, following the twins example in keeping his voice low enough to only where they could hear. "It seems like we have quite a bit in common, since I've been treated that way, too. I've had people treating me like shit and certain people insisting that I try to be something I'm not. I even spent my pre-Hogwarts days and most of every summer holidays living with relatives who love nothing more than to beat me, overwork me like a slave, degrade me, lock me in a cupboard as a punishment, having my bare-minimum meals revoked as another means of punishment, having a dog terrorize me and leave me virtually trapped in a tree without anyone calling it off, locking me in a bedroom almost around the clock with bars over my window and my bedroom door padlocked with no escape routes available to me, and even being alone and friendless because of my cousin and his gang bullying me and anybody who tried to befriend me. Even my so-called best friends turned out to be backstabbers."

Harry felt both of his hands being grasped and squeezed in a comforting manner, which felt really good to him. It intensified Harry's desires to stay away from Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Molly, and even Dumbledore for manipulating him. Remembering the prophecy Dumbledore told him, Harry decided to just start living life on his terms and quit letting people control it. He had enough playing the hero and getting treated like scum of the earth by most of the magical world in return.

"That's just awful!" the twins responded after a minute of stunned silence. "We really do have something in common with you, Harry. It looks like tonight wasn't a total loss after all."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "It seems to me as though the ones I should trust the most are secretly backstabbers while the people I shouldn't be tempted to trust turn out to be the best friends and parental figures I could ever hope for."

"It wouldn't hurt to continue bonding," said Flora. "If Malfoy and his kind don't want to accept it, well it's their problem."

"If they don't like us interacting with anybody outside of Slytherin," said Hestia. "They shouldn't even look at it and instead mind their own business."

"Shall we get some food?" asked Flora.

"Yeah," said Harry. "It's getting that time to eat."

After they finished their goblets of butterbeer, the three got up and headed for the refreshment table, unaware that Professor Slughorn spotted that and smiled to see some inter-house friendship forming (even more so with the still ongoing rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin). The potions teacher opted to leave Harry and the Carrow twins be, especially since he needed to make sure that everything was in order. Harry and the Carrow girls spotted the guests beginning to look at them and widen their eyes in surprise to see the unofficial Gryffindor Golden Boy interacting and being friendly with a pair of Slytherin twin girls. Harry checked his surroundings to make sure that neither Hermione nor Ginny were around. Luckily they weren't, but Harry knew that they were bound to arrive sooner or later, though he could tell that something was delaying their arrival. While he was curious to know what the cause was, Harry decided that it didn't matter. So he and the twins continued getting some food and some red punch, then they returned to their table to continue bonding while staying out of the way. Since there were witnesses, Harry and the twins knew that word about their interactions was going to spread since news in the castle traveled fast. But neither Harry nor the Carrow girls cared, since they hated the pointless house rivalry. They were more interested in befriending each other. Flora told Harry that she generally liked wearing her hair down while Hestia liked to keep her's in a ponytail to make it easier for others to tell the difference between the two. Hestia also told Harry that she liked to sleep a little later and that Flora was something of an early bird. The twins stated that they were good at potions and planned to be potioneers as their career choice.

'Looks like I'm gonna have one heck of a story to tell Neville and Luna,' thought Harry. 'Since they aren't the kind of people to judge someone based on their house or abilities or anything like that.'

Harry and the twins could hear discussions going on about their interacting with each other, but they ignored it since real people don't care about having an image to maintain. Neville and Luna also didn't care about an image to maintain, since they were a small handful of people who were happy to be themselves. Now, Harry knew it was time to show the majority of the others that he was going to be himself and not the hero they were expecting him to be. Harry was also going to abandon his plans to be an auror, realizing that he would have to continue playing the hero if he chose that career. The Carrow girls may not be drop-dead gorgeous, but they were still good-looking. Nevertheless, Harry knew that personality was more important and he was determined to abide by that. Right now, it was time for him to get to know the twins better.

The End!