A.N.: I finally found a new beta for this story. I am so happy. Now I could finally update this chapter, thanks to my friend Multilingualism.

Chapter 6: Brotherly Competition

It wasn't long until Quidditch tryouts for the term started and with Oliver Wood gone, Angelina Johnson had taken over as captain of their Quidditch team. Fred didn't mind at all as Angelina was a very skilled chaser and had the temperament and determination for the job. No longer having Wood as a keeper though was a blow he wasn't sure their team would be able to easily overcome. Because the candidates that presented themselves for the job were… not what Fred would have wished for. There were Vicky Frobisher, who was an overachiever in class, but only mediocre in Quidditch and Geoffrey Hooper who was a sissy. Well and then there was Ron… Fred knew his brother's flying skills as they had played with him often enough. He was a passable keeper to be fair, but his temperament was in constant shift and it wasn't rare that the boy stood in his own way. And that really wasn't something they could use during a challenging match when there was a lot of pressure on them.

Fred looked down the breakfast table and there Ron was, sitting next to his two best friends. Hermione finally seemed in a better mood than during the last days. The dark circles under her eyes were no longer as prominent as they had been during the last week and the smile had apparently found its way back on her face.

"You'll be fine, Ron, don't worry," the little witch just said and patted his brother's arm. And even though Fred could feel the nervousness radiating from his brother, he also felt an unexplainable twitch at the observation.

"Yeah, mate. You're a good keeper," Harry encouraged his friend and clapped his back. "I know you can do it, just don't lose your nerve."

Fred saw his little brother snort. "That's easier said than done. I'm not nearly as good as Wood was, there's no use telling me otherwise."

At that, Hermione huffed before she said in a low voice: "Stop comparing yourself to others, Ron. It doesn't matter what a keeper Oliver Wood was. Even if he was good, Ron, you need to remember how much you can do, when you simply believe in yourself. Remember what I told you a few days ago, you're special, even without… well, you know."

"Special, huh?" Fred thought and snapped his attention back to his own breakfast and his classmates surrounding him. Well, it was only a matter of time before Ron and Hermione got things going and by the sound of it, they had finally realized what he and George had expected all along. So why was he suddenly feeling so grumpy now? It wasn't like he had wanted the witch for himself, right? And if Hermione kept his brother happy enough to not lose his nerves during a game of Quidditch then that was really all that he could have hoped for. With that realization, he pushed his half-full plate away and got up from his seat. Breakfast wasn't over yet, but Fred would use the spare time to get changed into his Quidditch gear and fly some rounds to get warmed up. His hunger had somehow disappeared anyway and he really felt like he could use some more fresh air. These rooms were getting more and more stifling by the day.

sssssssss

"What's wrong Freddy?" George asked his brother as they were just heading back from another round of Quidditch practice. Their little brother had really made it into the team and even though George had been sceptical at first, Ron was doing rather well. Yes, he wasn't an Oliver Wood, but Ron was at least as good as the keepers the other teams had, if not better. And that was more than they could have hoped for. But that made Fred's behaviour in the last days even stranger. Ever since the day of Quidditch tryouts, his twin was in some kind of mood and that wasn't typical for him at all.

"Nothing's wrong," Fred grumbled in return and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his robes. "I'm just thinking, that's all."

George wasn't buying it but he knew better than to point this out to his twin. "Thinking about what?" he asked instead.

Fred didn't answer him for a few seconds but kept striding back to the castle at a pace that George could barely keep up with, without breaking out into a slow run. If there had been any question that his twin was agitated, which was not the case as Fred's feelings of confusion kept bleeding through the twin-bond then the answer was clear now. George kept pace with him for a while, until he grabbed his brother's arm and pulled him into an abrupt halt. "Stop it, Fred, just talk to me," he said and looked at his twin with pleading eyes. And finally, Fred turned around to him and looked at him with a huff. "It's about Ron," he finally admitted while using his foot to play with the grass in front of him. "He and Hermione are obviously an item now."

George looked at his brother with furrowed brows. Slowly it dawned him what had gotten him so riled up. "And that bothers you? How did you get the idea anyway? Did you catch them snogging or did Ronnie brag in front of you?"

Fred huffed and kicked into the ground. "No, nothing like that. I overheard them during breakfast one morning. Hermione went on about how special Ron was. Kind of made me lose my appetite."

George sighed. "Well, that will make things a bit complicated, indeed. I didn't expect you had a thing for her, too."

Fred looked at him with widened eyes. "What do you mean with… don't tell me… Merlin, George, you too?"

He shrugged and grinned helplessly. "It's kind of a recent thing and maybe it will go away after a while. It's just that she constantly seems to be on my mind and…"

"Yeah," Fred agreed and nodded miserably. "I know the feeling."

They stared at each other for a long while and even though none of them said a word, they could feel the other ones feeling seeping through the twin-bond. It was kind of a reassuring feeling to know that Fred didn't seem to be mad at him but seemed to understand his feelings.

"Well, Georgie, what do you want to do now?" Fred finally said and looked at him with a lost expression. George sighed and cast him a smile that could only be understood between the two of them.

"Well Freddie, first of all, we are going to find out if Ronnekins really got so lucky and secured our girl. If he did, I'm pretty sure he'll muck it up sooner or later. It's like he can't help it being a self-centred prick or something."

Fred nodded contemplatively. "And if he didn't get the girl? What then? Because I really don't fancy a fight between us."

George sighed. "I guess each of us will just do his best and if we're lucky she decides for one of us. Let's just agree that the other one doesn't get cross afterwards. I don't want this thing standing between us."

"Me neither," Fred agreed and clasped his arm. For a moment they just looked in each other's eyes and let the feelings of reassurance and understanding seep back and forth through the bond. Only after George got the feeling that there wasn't anything left between them to say and feel he pulled away with a smile.

"Well, Freddy. Shall we try to find our little brother? I feel like we should have a brotherly talk to him."

Fred grinned. "Absolutely George, absolutely."

ssssssssss

They found their little brother in the Gryffindor common room where he had obviously convinced Harry to play a game of wizard chess with him. Ron was winning, of course, but Harry didn't seem to mind – much. Hermione had retreated into one of the plush armchairs at the fire, where she hid behind her Transfiguration class book and seemed completely oblivious to the stuff going on around her – perfect.

"Oi, Ron, Harry," Fred greeted the two friends casually and stepped closer like he wanted to inspect the chessboard in front of them. Harry's king was in quite a precarious situation and George gave him two more rounds until he went checkmate. "Mind if we join you for a bit? We heard this juicy bit of gossip concerning our little brother here and it's just too good to not tease him about it."

Ron's head immediately snapped up. "Gossip? Concerning me?" He looked at them with an alarmed expression. "If this is about this Open-Link business then you can sod off right away. It's not me." George looked at him with a raised brow. That was indeed an interesting bit of information and therefore another person they could cross off their list of potential candidates. They had been able to narrow their search down to 39 people already, which they were actually quite proud of. It really wasn't easy to snoop out that kind of details about somebody whom they weren't directly friends with.

Fred snorted. "That's actually not what this is about. We heard you managed to snag yourself a girlfriend." He waggled his brows suggestively and Ron's colour immediately changed to something that reminded him of a raspberry.

"A girlfriend?" their little brother squeaked and looked at them with wide eyes. "Who?"

"Why, our lovely Hermione of course," George said as casually as possible and studied Ron's reaction. His brother scrunched his face in something like disgust.

"No!" he protested loudly, which made people around them look at him with interest. "That's absurd!" But Harry tried to shush him while looking around with a panicked expression. It only took a moment for Ron to deflate and his whole posture sagged together on his chair.

"So it isn't true?" Fred asked and George found that he maybe sounded a bit too happy for his liking. But Ron and Harry didn't seem to find anything amiss and shook their heads in unison.

"Of course not! Merlin, Hermione is like a sister to me and just the thought of…" Ron scrunched his face even further and he looked like he had just taken a juicy bite out of a lemon. "It would just be wrong, you know?"

George looked at him for a long moment but couldn't reply as the thoughts started swirling around in his head. Would it be wrong to woo her? Because actually, she wasn't their sister, even though she might very well regard them as family. Bloody hell. That would make things for him even more difficult for them.

Fred shrugged. "Not really, no. But luckily I don't have to. Well, I guess we'll be off then, as there doesn't seem anything we can tease our little brother about." Fred grinned boyishly and George could tell that his twin-brother already felt lighter in his heart. Ron seemed to be out of the game when it came to Hermione, so now it was only the two of them. But that would be hard enough.

ssssssssss

Dolores Umbridge, High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, didn't that have a nice ring to it? It had taken her some letters with detailed descriptions of the non-acceptable circumstances at Hogwarts, but finally, the Minister had agreed that the current environment was not a suitable environment for their future fosterling. Therefore Dolores was from now on tasked to take matters into her own, capable hands and her new position as High Inquisitor gave her the necessary power to make suitable changes at the school. She would have to establish certain rules to improve the children's behaviour when they were outside of their classes. Only after a week of school the hallways had almost morphed into something resembling a hotbed of sin, with females and males alike indulging in shameless kisses or other very inappropriate activities. This lack of propriety was, without doubt, to be ascribed to the new Headmaster of the school as such behaviour would have been unthinkable in her times as a Hogwarts student. Well, maybe she'd be able to remedy the problem with the school leadership later. For now, Dolores would have to concentrate to create a suitable environment to find and protect their Open Link, because they didn't want to have it sullied or misled to forgo a disadvantageous connection. A set of strict rules would be a very good start for that. Maybe she should find a good place to put them up for everybody to see. That way those … spoilt children would always be reminded, what behaviour would be expected from them. Yes, that was a good idea. She'd just have to wait for tomorrow's edition of the Prophet to announce her new position and then she could let Argus Filch put up her first set of rules. The students would hopefully accept them without a fuss. If not, she had already an idea of how to make them re-evaluate their scandalous behaviour.

sssssssss

Fred almost spit his coffee out when he heard Angelina announce the news of Umbridge's new position at breakfast. If she hadn't shown him the headline of the Prophet herself, he would have thought she was taking the mickey out of him, but there it stood black on white: Professor Dolores Umbridge was named Hogwarts' new High Inquisitor with the aim to reform the school and their student's untamed behaviour.

"Untamed behaviour?" George echoed his thoughts over his shoulder and looked at the girls across them with a crooked grin. "Gods, she'll be addressing it in our next lesson with her, won't she?"

Fred groaned. "Merlin, that's today. Can't we be sick or something? What's with the… you know… maybe we should make a little test run?"

George shrugged. "Well, in the worst case we'll get ourselves sick for real, but that's nothing a visit with Madam Pomfrey wouldn't fix. One way or the other, it would get us out of class…"

"What should we go for? Puking pastilles? Nosebleed nougat?" Fred asked and grinned boyishly but George just shrugged.

"We have the toad once a week, that's enough opportunities for us to try them all," he replied with a grin. "And if our new High Inquisitor really starts doing what I think she will, the business will be booming, soon Freddy. So we should probably use the time we gain today for adjusting the recipes and stocking up."

Fred grinned. "And I thought this would turn out to be a dull day…"

"With the two of us together? Never Freddy, never."

Sssssssss

"Students must refrain from showing inappropriate behaviour in and outside of class," Hermione read and stared at the new fixed rule in the entrance hall of the castle, "such as kissing, touching and other inappropriate shows of affection."

Ron snorted next to her in disbelief. "Really? That's the first thing that sprang into Umbridge's mind when she decided she wants to reform the school?"

Harry shrugged next to him. "Well, if that's the thing she worries about the most. It's not like it's a big deal for us. I mean… none of us… errr… do this kind of thing, right?"

"But that's not the point," Hermione bit out and looked at the boys with a stern expression. "We're not even back at school for two weeks and she already starts undermining Professor Dumbledore's authority. Don't you see? The Ministry is starting to interfere with our education. That is simply unheard off. What will be next? Will she start forbidding school clubs or evaluating the other teachers?"

Ron shook his head in disbelief. "No. Dumbledore would never let her get away with that Hermione. I have a feeling that this is somehow about that Open Link. That's the thing the Ministry is really interested in."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "We need to find out who it is - if it is one of us. Couldn't you brew this Draught of Insight again, Hermione? That way we could at least find out if it's you or me."

She weighed her head. "I could, but we'd have to find a safe place to brew it first. I honestly don't feel like returning to Myrtle's bathroom after knowing that it's the entrance to… you know…"

Harry sighed next to her. "We'll find you a place. You could ask Fred and George, they know the castle like no one else…"

Well, that would definitely supply her with a reason to talk to them again, which she definitely shouldn't as long as she hadn't gotten over this silly crush of hers. Talking to them would only make it worse and…

"Huh? There they are!" Ron interrupted her thoughts and pointed towards his brother's who hurried towards them with blood pouring from their noses. They had some kind of tissue pressed against their faces, but the fabric was already soaked in red and would soon start dripping onto the floor. She stared at them with wide eyes.

"Merlin, Fred, George," she gasped and hurried towards them, her resolution already forgotten. "What happened?"

They just shrugged helplessly and stared at her with large, brown eyes. She could feel her heart melt and all her resolutions with it. "Alright, I'll help you get to the infirmary. We can't let you lose consciousness in the middle of the staircases now, can we?"

The twins nodded with a helpless shrug, but it was enough for Hermione to step between them and put her hands on their backs. It wasn't strictly necessary of course, but it didn't look like they minded the contact.

"Harry? Ron? Could you excuse me with Professor McGonagall? I'll be back to her lesson as soon as possible."

Her friends nodded hastily and waved her off. Hermione didn't lose any time before she started to guide Fred and George down the floor. "Alright you two, let's get you patched up, shall we? I'm sure Madam Pomfrey will have you fixed up in no time at all."

They cast her a happy smile and Hermione couldn't help but recognize the little jump her heart made at that, traitorous little organ.