Disclaimer:
I do not pretend to own the Harry Potter world or any character within it: that right belongs to the eminent J. K. Rowling, to whom I most respectfully yield.
Neither do I pretend to be an expert on the early legends of King Arthur and the fabled Isle of Avalon. They belong to posterity and my imagination.
If, in writing, I offend someone, I apologize, but stand by my opinions.
I write this solely for my own amusement and for the appreciation of my audience. NO monetary gain whatsoever is intended.
I have no money, don't sue me, I'm not worth it, and there are bigger fish to fry.
Chapter Six
Fred and George Weasley proclaimed their acceptance of Anna into the Griffindor family by going into her trunk while she was asleep and painting a large red target, formed of bright concentric circles, on the backs and fronts of all her pure white tunics.
They had decided that enough weeks had passed for her to be properly initiated into Griffindor tower. They, being the practical jokers of Griffindor tower, felt it was their duty to see to this welcoming. Apparently neither of them was anticipating her to react quite as strongly as she did.
Anna came down that morning positively steaming. Apparently the atmosphere at Avalon was strict enough that practical joking wasn't the norm, or perhaps the chore of bleaching out a tunic, magically, before it could be worn was enough to aggravate her substantially. She had one of the offending tunics in her hand and was scanning the common room for a likely target for her early-morning wrath.
Spotting Harry and Ron, chortling over a joke that Dean was quietly telling them, Anna assumed it was at her predicament and promptly pulled out her wand.
"Accio!" she shouted, Summoning the two boys to her side and wrapping them tightly in magically binding ropes. From the look on her face and the fact that her wand was not being held in a position that would induce magic, they suspected that she was casting a good bit of magic around them without it.
"Care to explain what this," she waved an offending tunic in their face, "is all about, lads?" her accent was stronger than ever, she was practically burring with her eyes.
"We didn't do it!" Ron shouted, "Honest!"
"Anna!" Hermione shouted, having heard the commotion and running down the stairs in a fit of panic, half buttoned with her robes flying out behind her, and wand pulled. "What's going on?"
For explanation Anna held up the still dripping tunic for Hermione's inspection.
"RON!" Hermione shouted, "Honestly!" by now they'd garnered quite a crowd, in the common room, all of them curious to see what happened next.
"It wasn't us!" Harry protested, struggling tightly at his bonds.
"Well there's one easy way to see about that" Hermione said crisply, "Pintaro Originatorum" The red paint suddenly glowed neon green, and left a wafting trail from the boys' dormitory to the girls dormitory, back down the stairs of the girls dormitory, where Anna was holding it and straight into the crowd, centring on Fred and George Weasley.
One flick of her wand had Ron and Harry landing on the sofa cushions of the Griffindor sofa, Banished, and another flick saw Fred and George tied up, Summoned, and hanging from the ceiling of the common room, upside-down. Laughter rained down from the rafters of the tower, Griffindors finally enjoying the sight of Fred and George being caught for one of their pranks.
"Well," she said, circling the two tied up twins, "Do you have anything to say?"
"It was just a joke!" one of them mumbled, "Didn't mean anything by it"
"Really?" she said leeringly, "Let me just remind you the retribution is swift," she jerked their bonds so that they rattled like peas, "and harsh" she let them drop to the hard slate floor.
"Well then," Fred, or George, said testily, "You don't have to get testy about it."
"Testy?" Anna repeated, "I'll tell you when I get testy," she turned the slate floor to ice and slid the pair of them out of the common room, through the portrait hole, and crashing into the wall across the hall. "When you least expect it, expect it"
Fred and George looked over their shoulders and tiptoed through the common room for about a week, then Qwidditch trials started, and preparations for their usual batch of Halloween prank-ing caught up with them and their careful vigilance evaporated.
They'd just come back from an early morning Qwidditch practice, the common room was filling with people rushing to finish their last minute homework assignments. Angelina, Alicia, Katie, Harry, and their new Keeper, Natalie McDonald a second year in her first season of eligibility, all made it through the portrait hole unscathed. When Fred and George went to go through it, a large cauldron of what looked like water Apperated and spilled over both of them, drenching them to the skin.
As they sputtered and removed the cauldron from their heads, to the tune of laughter from the assembled Griffindors, Fred and George, were met by a pair of pristine calf-high white boots.
"Well, Gentlemen?" Anna asked, "Have you anything to say to me now?" the twins just growled and stalked off to their dormitory to presumably get cleaned off. Ron was on the floor in a fit of hysterical laughter, and the entire assembled company of Griffindors were laughing with him. They all thought that Fred and George had got their comeuppance.
They were wrong.
During breakfast that morning, while Harry was eating his porridge and Hermione had her nose busily buried in the paper, Ron suddenly let his spoon drop from his fingers landing with a plop and scattering oatmeal everywhere. Harry was about to protest Ron's splattering, when a loud set of catcalls and whistles sounded from the other end of the hall.
He and Hermione both turned to see the cause of the disturbance and were greeted with a sight they'd never thought they'd see. Fred and George Weasley, both of them, were walking down the side of the table with faces blushing brightly red and hair dyed a shocking shade of neon green.
As they walked the strands shifted from neon green to a truly eye-blinding shade of hot pink. Ron, Hermione, and Harry, indeed the entire Griffindor table, looked to see what Anna was doing, but all she did was grin as she chewed thoughtfully on her morning apple and read from a dog eared copy of Potions and Pranks: Second Edition.
From that moment onwards Fred, George, and Anna became fast friends. Apparently the combination of her scholarship, their talent for pranks, and the infamous Avalon connections, led to a midnight package from Hogwarts to Zonkos Joke Shop Inc. On the last Hogsmeade weekend before Halloween everyone stopped to stare at the storefront of Zonko's as they advertised the All-New Never-Before-Seen Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
They were such a hit that Zonko's in Hogsmeade sold out of every Wizard Wheeze in the shop, a six month supply gone in a matter of hours. Apparently the London supply went as quickly, because on the day after Halloween a letter arrived from Zonkos Inc that had Fred and George pelting down the Great Hall and swinging Anna up into a humongous embrace.
As soon as they calmed down enough to relinquish the letter, Anna read out the profits for the month, that totalled, including deductions from taxes, licensing, and advertisement fees, nearly five thousand Galleons.
Fred whooped and shouted, waving the paper in the air. George bent Anna over his arm and kissed her so enthusiastically she was blushing and gasping by the time he let her back up. Even Snape's vindictive fifty points from Griffindor for 'disturbing the peace' couldn't put a damper on the celebrations, which lasted all day and well into the night. Everyone in Hogwarts, with the possible exception of a few Slytherins, was overjoyed at the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes success.
Harry, Ron and Hermione pretty much waltzed through the day, Professors Flitwick, Binns and McGonagall realizing that not much was likely to get done anyhow. The only damper, if possible, on the day was the sudden and abrupt departure of Anna, the heroine of the hour to parts unknown; because it was her influence that'd gotten Zonko's attention. The Lady Raven had come for her during the early minutes of Charms and it was almost ten o'clock in the evening and they still had seen neither hide nor hair of her.
Fred was off in a corner somewhere, gleefully 'celebrating' by snogging the life out of his girlfriend, Angelina. George was setting off Fillibuster's No-Heat Wet-Start Fireworks and downing bottle after bottle of Butterbeer.
The three friends however weren't quite so gleeful. They'd seen the expression on Raven's face as she'd come to pick up Anna, and she wasn't happy. Somehow they got the impression that using an Avalon connection to 'help' get Weasley's Wizard Wheezes off the ground was not a good thing for Anna to have done.