Fred and George came ambling down the stairs from their room slinging their
backpacks over their shoulders. "Sorry we're late, we had to borrow
something from Harry." George said as they approached Alli and Shea.
"Not a problem," Alli said as she stood up and stretched "we were just plotting out our summer."
"Good old plotting. So what do you guys got in the bags?" Shea asked eyeing their backpacks curiously.
"Oh, just some.er.essentials." Fred said with a slight smile.
"So we have a plan on how to get down to the forest." George said quickly changing the subject as Shea and Alli suspiciously eyed the bags. "We think you guys should head down first, if that's alright?"
"Well, yeah sure we have a way to make it down without being noticed, but what about you guys?"
"Oh don't worry about us, we got some friends." Fred said patting his pocket that had some parchment sticking out.
Alli just raised an eyebrow and said: "Well, alright then, but why do you want us to go down first?"
"Well, we thought it would be just you Alli, but it'll actually be easier since there's two of you now. We need you to get a pumpkin from the back of Hagrid's hut and put it in the shade of the trees from the forest before midnight. We'd do it, but our friend hasn't finished a certain potion we need just yet." George said in an unusually straightforward manner.
"Wow, you guys sure are doing something serious here, sure you don't wanna let us in on the joke?" Alli asked.
"Not just yet, you guys should really get going." Fred said glancing out the window.
Shea looked at her watch as well and said: "Yeah, we really should, Hagrid's pumpkins can be pretty heavy. We'll meet you guys down there." With that Alli and Shea snuck quietly through the portrait hole and pulled out the invisibility cloak. After making sure it completely covered the two of them, which was getting harder and harder through the years the taller they got, they began to quietly make their way out of the castle. As they were passing the great hall Alli suddenly remembered something from earlier.
"Hey," she whispered "weren't you saying something about that.er", she tried desperately to stifle her giggling, "...owl your mom sent you?" Earlier that day as Alli, Shea and Tess had been picking at their breakfast and grumbling about the cruelty of mornings, the usual mass of owls had flown in and one particularly large one had swooped down and landed in front of Shea. At once Alli and Tess had started giggling at it, for it was a funny shade of orange and it's feathers stuck out at odd angles everywhere. Then, all of a sudden, as soon as it had dropped the letter out of its beak it began to walk down the length of the table flapping its wings and thrusting it's head like a chicken. Alli and Tess roared with laughter and nearly fell off their seats as Shea tried desperately to stop the crazy owl as it spilled juice left and right making weird clucking noises. Shea's mother had been notorious for sending the strangest owls anyone had ever seen, she was a muggle and it was a complete mystery to the girls just where she even found owls.
Shea finally interrupted Alli's memory of that morning by whispering back: "Oh yeah, I'll tell you when we're outside." The girls looked around to check if anyone or anything was lurking anywhere nearby before they gently creaked the huge front doors open and slipped outside into the cool night air. "What time is it?" Alli asked Shea as they started to make their way toward the back of Hagrid's hut.
"11:49," Shea said looking at her now glowing watch, "we better hurry it up."
"Heh, good thing you finally got rid of that Hello Kitty watch that kept breaking."
"Hey, there's no need to speak ill of the deceased watch! I still don't trust this newfangled one anyway, entirely too complicated." Alli just shook her head and smiled. The two girls hurried to the pumpkin patch behind Hagrids hut and quickly picked up the first pumpkin they saw.
As they were lugging the larger than normal pumpkin towards the forest, huffing and puffing, Alli asked: "Hey..how..did..you..." paused for a bit more huffing and puffing "know..that Hagrid's..pumpkins would..be heavy?"
Shea nearly dropped the pumpkin as she gave Alli a completely confused look. "What....are....you....talking...about?"
Alli waited till they had set the pumpkin down in the shade of the closest tree and thrown off the invisibility cloak until she answered: "Just before we left the common room you said that Hagrid's pumpkins can be pretty heavy, how did you know that?"
Shea just gave Alli an odd look and said "Your mind really works in weird ways dude, you're just now thinking of this?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, so tell me, were you the guilty culprit of that pumpkin incident last year?" Alli asked giving Shea a penetrating look.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Shea responded deliberately avoiding Alli's eyes. "I could've just guesstimated the weightiness of the pumpkins!"
"Wow, Shea, I never would've thought you had it in you."
"What? I'm not always just some dork who merely sits in the library with her nose in books all the time you know, I have a bad side, and I am perfectly capable for exacting revenge on some jerk who called me a bad name!"
"Ah-ha! I knew it was you."
Shea let her mouth hang open for a minute realizing what she had confessed to and simply muttered: "Well, it took you long enough."
Alli just laughed and said: "That was pure genius dude, I mean an enchanted pumpkin pie that makes you do the hula every time someone says the word "it"? Madam Pomfrey had no idea what to do with him!" The two girls giggled over the memory of the oversized slytherin boy with shaggy black hair, that had teased Shea incessantly last year, doing a very bad hula dance in the middle of the halls with a befuddled look on his face as he sang "Aloha oy..aloha oy.."
"Well, he never came near me again now did he?" Shea said as her giggles finally subsided. After a couple more minutes the girls finally saw Fred and George emerge from the castle thanks to the bright light of the full moon. They were huddled over a piece of parchment, but then they looked up and saw Alli and Shea wave and Fred stuffed the parchment in his pocket. They hurried over to the girls both of them carrying a small bottle, one filled with grayish liquid and the other full of a bright pink liquid.
"Alright, you guys got the pumpkin?"
"Yup," Alli said tapping the pumpkin with her foot, "what you got in those bottles?"
"Oh we'll explain that on the way." Fred said with a sly grin as George stepped into the shadows and picked up the pumpkin.
"Well, best be off then," George said groaning with the weight of the pumkin. Then he turned to make his way to the main path in the forest and the others followed him swatting bugs away and grumbling at snagging branches. After they had gotten fairly deep into the forest they all pulled out their wands and muttered Lumos. Fred and George led the way whispering to each other as Shea and Alli fell into step behind them.
"So are you gonna tell me what the letter your mom sent you was about?" Alli asked.
"Oh yeah, I keep forgetting, it's nothing major, she just went on and on about the same ole stuff but then near the end she talked about this dinner party she and my dad went to. Apparently there was this really religious stuck up type there and during dessert she was talking about how her daughter had turned out to be a witch and how she believed it was completely satanic and evil and wanted to disown her."
"What???" Alli nearly shouted.
"I know! I laughed when I read it in the library; Madam Pince gave me the evilest eye you've ever seen! Anyways, apparently her daughter goes here and she keeps writing her mum trying to tell her about Hogwarts and how it's not evil. My mom said the woman told her she actually saw the robes her daughter had and screamed and ran out of the room claiming the devil resided in the linings!" Alli and Shea lost themselves in giggles at the ridiculous notion of this. "Oh! Also, she saw a picture of Dumbledore in a wizard card when she was cleaning her daughter's room last summer and tried to burn it because she thought it was satan trying to lure her into the card and commit evil deeds!" The girls continued to giggle until Fred turned around and asked them what the joke was.
"Oh, we'll explain later."Alli said giving the twins an imitation of the sly look they had been giving her whenever she asked them questions. All of a sudden something stirred in the bushes just ahead on the right side and the four of them all jumped. George began to approach the bush tentatively with his wand.
"Are you mad?" Shea said pulling him back "Didn't you hear about that cat and the curiosity that was the end of it? Let's just keep going and make sure our eyes are peeled." So the four of them trudged on deeper into the forest huddled close together. As soon as Fred and George had started whispering secretively to each other again Alli turned to Shea and asked: "Ok, so what was that all about?"
"What are you talking about?" Shea asked looking puzzled.
"Dude, curiosity has killed you plenty of times! I mean let's not forget that incident in potions last year! You nearly melted Tess! I can't decide if I was more surprised that you weren't the first to start approaching the bush or that you stopped Fred."
"George."
"That's what I said."
"No you didn't you-"
"Moving on, answer my question!"
Shea sighed and looked around as if expecting someone to be lurking behind a tree eavesdropping then finally whispered: "I didn't want to tell you but a while back when we first lit our wands, I caught a glimpse of something."
"What? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I'm getting to that if you could keep your mouth shut long enough!"
"Sorry, continue." Alli bowed her head closer to listen.
"Well, right before we said Lumos I was looking back again to make sure we were deep enough into the forest so Hagrid or anyone else wouldn't see the lights." Alli just nodded her head urging Shea to continue, "Alright well my head was still looking off to the side when I said Lumos and I swear I caught a glimpse of something.it looked like.like." Alli raised her eyebrows in impatience, "like Shelia."
"Who's Shelia?" Fred asked startling Alli and Shea so much they jumped nearly a mile high.
Alli sputtered for a few seconds before finally getting out: "Don't do that!"
"Do what?" George asked innocently.
"Scare us like that." Shea said her hand still over her rapidly beating heart.
"Oh well we swear we wont scare you like that again, so just tell us who's Shelia and why was she, or possibly he-" "Don't forget the possibility of it." George added interrupting Fred. "--shaking that bush back there?" Fred finished.
Alli crossed her arms and defiantly said: "We're not telling you anything until you confess those little secrets of yours."
"Oh, and another thing for that matter, how do you guys even know where your going? For all we know you could be leading us into a death trap."
"We-we, well, we don't want to tell you just yet." George said.
"Fine." Alli said.
"Fine." Fred said back. For the next couple of minutes the four just stood there staring defiantly at each other until all of a sudden a snow white rabbit hopped in between the four and stared up at each of them. At first the four weren't even aware that such a thing had happened until:
"Oh get over yourselves." A voice with an Australian accent suddenly said. They all jumped and looked down at the source of the voice, the white rabbit. Shea and Alli backed up against a tree glaring at the rabbit.
"Not a problem," Alli said as she stood up and stretched "we were just plotting out our summer."
"Good old plotting. So what do you guys got in the bags?" Shea asked eyeing their backpacks curiously.
"Oh, just some.er.essentials." Fred said with a slight smile.
"So we have a plan on how to get down to the forest." George said quickly changing the subject as Shea and Alli suspiciously eyed the bags. "We think you guys should head down first, if that's alright?"
"Well, yeah sure we have a way to make it down without being noticed, but what about you guys?"
"Oh don't worry about us, we got some friends." Fred said patting his pocket that had some parchment sticking out.
Alli just raised an eyebrow and said: "Well, alright then, but why do you want us to go down first?"
"Well, we thought it would be just you Alli, but it'll actually be easier since there's two of you now. We need you to get a pumpkin from the back of Hagrid's hut and put it in the shade of the trees from the forest before midnight. We'd do it, but our friend hasn't finished a certain potion we need just yet." George said in an unusually straightforward manner.
"Wow, you guys sure are doing something serious here, sure you don't wanna let us in on the joke?" Alli asked.
"Not just yet, you guys should really get going." Fred said glancing out the window.
Shea looked at her watch as well and said: "Yeah, we really should, Hagrid's pumpkins can be pretty heavy. We'll meet you guys down there." With that Alli and Shea snuck quietly through the portrait hole and pulled out the invisibility cloak. After making sure it completely covered the two of them, which was getting harder and harder through the years the taller they got, they began to quietly make their way out of the castle. As they were passing the great hall Alli suddenly remembered something from earlier.
"Hey," she whispered "weren't you saying something about that.er", she tried desperately to stifle her giggling, "...owl your mom sent you?" Earlier that day as Alli, Shea and Tess had been picking at their breakfast and grumbling about the cruelty of mornings, the usual mass of owls had flown in and one particularly large one had swooped down and landed in front of Shea. At once Alli and Tess had started giggling at it, for it was a funny shade of orange and it's feathers stuck out at odd angles everywhere. Then, all of a sudden, as soon as it had dropped the letter out of its beak it began to walk down the length of the table flapping its wings and thrusting it's head like a chicken. Alli and Tess roared with laughter and nearly fell off their seats as Shea tried desperately to stop the crazy owl as it spilled juice left and right making weird clucking noises. Shea's mother had been notorious for sending the strangest owls anyone had ever seen, she was a muggle and it was a complete mystery to the girls just where she even found owls.
Shea finally interrupted Alli's memory of that morning by whispering back: "Oh yeah, I'll tell you when we're outside." The girls looked around to check if anyone or anything was lurking anywhere nearby before they gently creaked the huge front doors open and slipped outside into the cool night air. "What time is it?" Alli asked Shea as they started to make their way toward the back of Hagrid's hut.
"11:49," Shea said looking at her now glowing watch, "we better hurry it up."
"Heh, good thing you finally got rid of that Hello Kitty watch that kept breaking."
"Hey, there's no need to speak ill of the deceased watch! I still don't trust this newfangled one anyway, entirely too complicated." Alli just shook her head and smiled. The two girls hurried to the pumpkin patch behind Hagrids hut and quickly picked up the first pumpkin they saw.
As they were lugging the larger than normal pumpkin towards the forest, huffing and puffing, Alli asked: "Hey..how..did..you..." paused for a bit more huffing and puffing "know..that Hagrid's..pumpkins would..be heavy?"
Shea nearly dropped the pumpkin as she gave Alli a completely confused look. "What....are....you....talking...about?"
Alli waited till they had set the pumpkin down in the shade of the closest tree and thrown off the invisibility cloak until she answered: "Just before we left the common room you said that Hagrid's pumpkins can be pretty heavy, how did you know that?"
Shea just gave Alli an odd look and said "Your mind really works in weird ways dude, you're just now thinking of this?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, so tell me, were you the guilty culprit of that pumpkin incident last year?" Alli asked giving Shea a penetrating look.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Shea responded deliberately avoiding Alli's eyes. "I could've just guesstimated the weightiness of the pumpkins!"
"Wow, Shea, I never would've thought you had it in you."
"What? I'm not always just some dork who merely sits in the library with her nose in books all the time you know, I have a bad side, and I am perfectly capable for exacting revenge on some jerk who called me a bad name!"
"Ah-ha! I knew it was you."
Shea let her mouth hang open for a minute realizing what she had confessed to and simply muttered: "Well, it took you long enough."
Alli just laughed and said: "That was pure genius dude, I mean an enchanted pumpkin pie that makes you do the hula every time someone says the word "it"? Madam Pomfrey had no idea what to do with him!" The two girls giggled over the memory of the oversized slytherin boy with shaggy black hair, that had teased Shea incessantly last year, doing a very bad hula dance in the middle of the halls with a befuddled look on his face as he sang "Aloha oy..aloha oy.."
"Well, he never came near me again now did he?" Shea said as her giggles finally subsided. After a couple more minutes the girls finally saw Fred and George emerge from the castle thanks to the bright light of the full moon. They were huddled over a piece of parchment, but then they looked up and saw Alli and Shea wave and Fred stuffed the parchment in his pocket. They hurried over to the girls both of them carrying a small bottle, one filled with grayish liquid and the other full of a bright pink liquid.
"Alright, you guys got the pumpkin?"
"Yup," Alli said tapping the pumpkin with her foot, "what you got in those bottles?"
"Oh we'll explain that on the way." Fred said with a sly grin as George stepped into the shadows and picked up the pumpkin.
"Well, best be off then," George said groaning with the weight of the pumkin. Then he turned to make his way to the main path in the forest and the others followed him swatting bugs away and grumbling at snagging branches. After they had gotten fairly deep into the forest they all pulled out their wands and muttered Lumos. Fred and George led the way whispering to each other as Shea and Alli fell into step behind them.
"So are you gonna tell me what the letter your mom sent you was about?" Alli asked.
"Oh yeah, I keep forgetting, it's nothing major, she just went on and on about the same ole stuff but then near the end she talked about this dinner party she and my dad went to. Apparently there was this really religious stuck up type there and during dessert she was talking about how her daughter had turned out to be a witch and how she believed it was completely satanic and evil and wanted to disown her."
"What???" Alli nearly shouted.
"I know! I laughed when I read it in the library; Madam Pince gave me the evilest eye you've ever seen! Anyways, apparently her daughter goes here and she keeps writing her mum trying to tell her about Hogwarts and how it's not evil. My mom said the woman told her she actually saw the robes her daughter had and screamed and ran out of the room claiming the devil resided in the linings!" Alli and Shea lost themselves in giggles at the ridiculous notion of this. "Oh! Also, she saw a picture of Dumbledore in a wizard card when she was cleaning her daughter's room last summer and tried to burn it because she thought it was satan trying to lure her into the card and commit evil deeds!" The girls continued to giggle until Fred turned around and asked them what the joke was.
"Oh, we'll explain later."Alli said giving the twins an imitation of the sly look they had been giving her whenever she asked them questions. All of a sudden something stirred in the bushes just ahead on the right side and the four of them all jumped. George began to approach the bush tentatively with his wand.
"Are you mad?" Shea said pulling him back "Didn't you hear about that cat and the curiosity that was the end of it? Let's just keep going and make sure our eyes are peeled." So the four of them trudged on deeper into the forest huddled close together. As soon as Fred and George had started whispering secretively to each other again Alli turned to Shea and asked: "Ok, so what was that all about?"
"What are you talking about?" Shea asked looking puzzled.
"Dude, curiosity has killed you plenty of times! I mean let's not forget that incident in potions last year! You nearly melted Tess! I can't decide if I was more surprised that you weren't the first to start approaching the bush or that you stopped Fred."
"George."
"That's what I said."
"No you didn't you-"
"Moving on, answer my question!"
Shea sighed and looked around as if expecting someone to be lurking behind a tree eavesdropping then finally whispered: "I didn't want to tell you but a while back when we first lit our wands, I caught a glimpse of something."
"What? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I'm getting to that if you could keep your mouth shut long enough!"
"Sorry, continue." Alli bowed her head closer to listen.
"Well, right before we said Lumos I was looking back again to make sure we were deep enough into the forest so Hagrid or anyone else wouldn't see the lights." Alli just nodded her head urging Shea to continue, "Alright well my head was still looking off to the side when I said Lumos and I swear I caught a glimpse of something.it looked like.like." Alli raised her eyebrows in impatience, "like Shelia."
"Who's Shelia?" Fred asked startling Alli and Shea so much they jumped nearly a mile high.
Alli sputtered for a few seconds before finally getting out: "Don't do that!"
"Do what?" George asked innocently.
"Scare us like that." Shea said her hand still over her rapidly beating heart.
"Oh well we swear we wont scare you like that again, so just tell us who's Shelia and why was she, or possibly he-" "Don't forget the possibility of it." George added interrupting Fred. "--shaking that bush back there?" Fred finished.
Alli crossed her arms and defiantly said: "We're not telling you anything until you confess those little secrets of yours."
"Oh, and another thing for that matter, how do you guys even know where your going? For all we know you could be leading us into a death trap."
"We-we, well, we don't want to tell you just yet." George said.
"Fine." Alli said.
"Fine." Fred said back. For the next couple of minutes the four just stood there staring defiantly at each other until all of a sudden a snow white rabbit hopped in between the four and stared up at each of them. At first the four weren't even aware that such a thing had happened until:
"Oh get over yourselves." A voice with an Australian accent suddenly said. They all jumped and looked down at the source of the voice, the white rabbit. Shea and Alli backed up against a tree glaring at the rabbit.