SEVEN
Eve walked out the confinement of the castle, and with one quick glance at her surroundings, spotted the identical redhaired figures standing on the outskirts of the courtyard grounds. She couldn't help but notice the lack of students around them as she made her way towards the twins. Sure, it was the late afternoon, and most students were either headed back to their dorms or starting their evening of studying in the library, but the school still felt more desolate than usual.
The silence of the courtyard was briefly broken by the shouting of "de Santos!" presumably by whichever twin spotted her first.
"You two scare off all the children?" Eve asked, finally reaching the boys, her arm resting over her book bag, which was currently holding three grown Aconite stems in place of her books.
"You will find a certain professor has taken that task over for us," Eve was almost certain Fred had said. She was still working on telling the twins apart.
What she understood so far was that Fred almost always stood on the left side. And when in groups, he was usually the first to speak of the two of them. With George, Eve had noticed his hair would be parted a bit differently on days as if he had more of a tendency to mess it up. And when he spoke, he usually sounded a bit more lighthearted, almost kinder, compared to Fred, who was nearly always brash and always seemed to tease.
"At least we're a bit more humorous when we do it," George shrugged.
Eve stopped in front of the boys, looking between the two expectantly.
"So, have we come out here because you've found somewhere to plant your contraband?"
"Technically, it's your contraband," George grinned, turning with Fred as they started walking away from the castle grounds.
Eve paused for a moment, watching their direction with confusion, before taking a few quick strides to catch up with them. Dividing the two boys with herself between them, she shot them both a puzzled look.
"Don't you think planting away from the castle is going to be awfully suspicious?" Eve asked.
"Don't you think planting somewhere inside the castle would be worse, especially with Umbridge poking around?" Fred challenged.
"But where?" she replied before turning to look at the direction Fred was motioning towards.
"You want to grow in the Forbidden Forest? That's a bit dangerous," Eve commented, but she kept her stride towards the area all the same.
"Not a problem," Fred replied with a smile.
"Winter is going to be here sooner than you think, you know," Eve challenged.
"Not a problem," George replied with an identical smile.
"We found the perfect spot. Not too far in but not around where classes would walkthrough. Good sunlight, too," Fred explained just as they reached the edge of the forest. He had taken the lead now of George and Eve, who followed behind as the twin zigzagged between trees in the direction he seemingly knew the way to.
"You ever been in the Forbidden Forest outside class?" George asked from his side beside Eve. She let out a forced laugh at this.
"What do you think?" she replied, looking at him with a raised dark eyebrow. He laughed in return.
"And here I was thinking you were some secret Hufflepuff rebel," he replied with false disappointment, but Eve could see a slight grin creep on the corners of his mouth.
"Oh, I am. I just don't know how to fight off werewolves and centaurs," Eve shrugged.
"Bit dramatic," Fred replied from ahead. He had stopped now and was standing over what was assumed to be their planting grounds.
Eve reached his side and looked down at what was in front of them. The boys had set up what looked like an actual garden spot. They had even put makeshift fencing using rocks, all of which held in a few feet of overturned soil ready for planting.
"This looks great," Eve commented with a smile, dropping to her knees to examine the soil closer.
"Once it gets colder, we'll put a barrier charm on it. It shouldn't be too hard. At least for a while," Fred replied, taking a seat on a conveniently placed fallen tree log a few feet away from Eve's spot on the ground. She figured the natural bench was the reason why they chose the location, to begin with, lounging place while she labored.
Eve opened her bookbag, carefully reaching for the folded pieces of parchment that held the wrapped stems inside. Taking two fingers, she gently pressed three holes in the soil, making sure they were wide enough for the grown roots to have space to grow but not big enough for the stems to tilt easily out of place. She made sure to roughly measure the distances between the holes, giving room for growth and leaving enough room to fit half a dozen more plants when the time came to grow more.
Pointing and muttering an Aguamenti charm, she carefully watered each stem from the tip of her wand.
George had taken a spot on the ground on the other side of Eve, watching her moves with careful curiosity. On the other hand, Fred was still on the tree log, but now he had taken a parchment from his bookbag and feverously scribbled on it.
"How long should it take for the leaves to grow and reach full size?" he asked, not taking his eyes off from his notes.
"I don't know exactly," Eve answered truthfully, looking back from Fred to her new little creations, "Two weeks sounds about right, maybe three."
"And each stem makes two leaves?" Fred asked again.
"Usually, sometimes they grow only one though," Eve shrugged, watching Fred make sense of all this information on the parchment in front of him.
"We already took orders with students," George replied, clearly noticing Eve's curiosity at Fred's work, "We spared a lot of the first batch letting kids test them out."
Eve's gaze turned to George now.
"Your fellow Gryffindors are just willingly letting themselves get experimented on? Your common room must just look like the hospital wing," Eve replied with genuine concern in her voice.
"We've actually gotten a lot better with hospitalizations. There's been none for a whole week," George smiled, with all the humble pride Eve would only have expected from a Weasley twin at such a boast.
"Oh, that is impressive. Surely, they'll give an award when you two graduate then, maybe a plaque on the walls next to one of Umbridge's signs," Eve grinned, looking from George to Fred, the latter having stopped writing now.
"They should give us an award for graduating at all. We only came back this year because our mum basically threatened decapitation," Fred shrugged. Eve's mouth fell open.
"What? You guys really weren't going to finish? With only one year left?" she asked, now completely stunned. Eve couldn't even comprehend the idea of leaving school, and she wasn't even close to being a top student.
"See, we've got this plan of owning our own joke shop. We have this one location in mind. It's perfect. Right in the middle of Diagon Alley, really busy street, multiple levels of space. We just haven't closed anything yet," George explained, and as he did so, his smile and his eyes lit up in animated enthusiasm, like a child in the middle of narrating some sort of implausible dream to the adult in front of them.
But they weren't children, and it wasn't implausible, and Eve smiled at them with the thought of how both wonderful and incredulous it must be for someone to make their dreams come true. To be so young and so ambitious, especially at a time like this. To carry hopefulness like that every day despite everything that has happened, what a piece of magic that must be. For a moment, Eve felt a slight glimmer of pride in the fact that she was helping make this happen, even if it was just a tiny fraction of doing.
"You can imagine, though," Fred continued, snapping Eve out of her momentary daydream, "that school gets in the way of all that. And now we have Umbridge and a newly spirited Filch to up the ante."
"I saw Umbridge shoot two Slytherins that were snogging ten feet apart yesterday in the Transfiguration corridor," Eve recalled with a hint of a smile.
"I'll let that one slide, mate. I'm not keen on seeing any Slytherins snogging," Fred replied, accompanied with an exaggerated gagging gesture.
"Yeah, I see what you mean, cousin kissing and all that," Eve replied, earning laughter from the two boys.
"You know, that's very rude to say to two purebloods," George retorted, wiggling his finger in Eve's direction like a scolding schoolteacher.
"Oh, I'm only joking," Eve sighed, getting up from her spot on the ground and shooting George a playful grin, "None of my business what you get up to anyways."
George looked away from Eve at this, his own grin trailing to the ground. Fred got up from his spot on the tree log and joined the pair beside the little improvised garden. He examined Eve's work for a second before nodding in approval.
"Looks promising to me. As much as three flowers could possibly look," Fred contented.
"They're not exactly flowers," Eve pointed out, grabbing her book bag from the ground and swinging it over her shoulder.
"They're flowers to me," Fred shrugged, twisting on his heels and starting his way back through the forest.
"And before long, they'll be money in our pockets!" George exclaimed from behind Eve.
The trio made their way out of the Forbidden Forest clearing and back up to the castle. The sun was setting, and the grounds were as empty as ever. There was a group of hovering figures in the quidditch arena off the in the distance, presumably either the Ravenclaw or Slytherin team practicing.
They had just made it inside the corridor connected to the outside courtyard when there was a piercing shriek coming from a distance far to the left of them. Eve grimaced, she knew what was coming, and she was never ready for it.
"And what does Peevsy have here? A couple of children causing mayhem and mischief out of castle grounds?"
Peeves the Poltergeist was already darting past the tops of their heads before they could spot him. Eve had always hated Peeves. If it wasn't because of his afterlife's mission to cause the misfortune of every student he came in contact with, it was because of his devilish smile and small contorted frame that appeared all too human-like for Eve to ever get comfortable with. He was something out of a muggle horror film, but she could never explain that to her magic-born peers.
"All in a day's work, Peeves. Have to keep the spirit of the school alive. You know all about that," Fred replied easily as if the two were long-time school friends and not a teenage boy talking to a floating medieval demon.
George had seemingly been watching Eve's face as it formed a look unfiltered dread because he chuckled at the girl, giving her shoulder a slight nudge from his own.
"Come on, now. You're not a fan of ol' Peeves?" George teased.
"You're joking, right? Do we not attend the same school? That thing freaks me out. He threw an egg at me last Easter," Eve muttered, causing George to bark with laughter at such a miserable comment.
"Oi, Peeves!" George called out, immediately causing Eve to shove him in the shoulder, but the boy persisted, "Did you throw an egg at our friend last year? That's not very nice!"
Peeves took one look at Eve and howled with laughter, his body doing physical rolls in the air as he lost control between laughs.
"I thought Hufflepuffs liked when I threw eggs at them! Their screams sound so delightful!"
The twins joined in the laughter now, and Eve grimaced once again.
Of course, they're friends with Peeves.
Author's Note: I will never forgive the HP filmmakers for not including the ghosts in the films. With that being said, the thought of actually seeing Peeves in real life makes me physically ill lol.
