A/N I would like to apologize deeply, humbly and sincerely about how long this took to get out to you guys. Between a whole bunch of perfectly reasonable excuses and the good old spirit of Christmas procrastination, it's taken a while.

Ernie resisted clasped his hands behind his back, determined to remain calm so as not to put his friends on edge. Or, as was the case for Justin, more on edge.

Are you sure they said to meet them here?"asked Justin, looking around the deserted corridor once again.

"That's what they said," Hannah spoke up, nervously playing with her wand. "Or at least, that's what I heard them say."

"That's certainly what they said," agreed Susan Bones cheerfully, leaning against a statue of a witch with a humpbacked and one eye. Susan grinned and imitating it by shutting one eye and squinting around at them before speaking again.. "Unless they were lying to us."

Personally, I believe they're just a bit late," said Ernie, trying to calm Hannah down.

"Really?" asked Hannah, polishing her wand on her robes; a few sparks shot out. "They were on time for all the D.A. meetings…"

"Well, they're not particularly trustworthy," said Justin. "They're probably having a good laugh at us right now while their eating their dinner,"

"You think so?" said Hannah.

"Nah," said Susan. "They wouldn't do that."

"Are you sure?" said Justin, craning his neck to look down the end of the corridor yet again. "It sounds like exactly the sort of thing they would do."

"What do we know about them?" prompted Ernie, hoping that this question would lead his friends into realizing that the Weasley twins, though admittedly disruptive, were indeed trustworthy, at least to a point.

"Their troublemakers," said Justin immediately.

"They're incredibly good-looking," countered Susan.

"They like to play pranks," added Hannah.

"They've gotten detention before," said Justin.

"They've incredibly good-looking," repeated Susan.

"They've never been kicked out?" offered Hannah, making it sound more like a question then a statement.

"Yet."

"They're incredibly good—"

"Enough about how good looking they are," said Ernie, starting to feel annoyed by Susan's mantra.

"Sorry," said Susan brightly, smiling at him. "But it's true."

She only shrugged when Ernie glared at her, transferring her smile to Hannah as the latter rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.

"They have their own drawer in Filch's office," said Justin, having ignored the entire exchange between Susan and Ernie. "No one else in the whole school has their own drawer."

"How do you know that?" asked Hannah lowering her voice and wincing slightly as the Bloody Baron emerged from the wall just in front of her and floated past, clanking slightly.

Justin immediately colored, waiting until the Bloody Baron had floated down the hall before answering. "Filch caught near the forbidden corridor on the third floor. Not my fault of course, it was only my fourth day, and the castle's a bit confusing. My parents weren't pleased, fourth day and already in detention…"

"Nothing wrong with that, we don't really consider anyone a student before they've been given detention," said a loud voice from behind them, so unexpectedly that it was just as bad as someone yelling "boo!"

Ernie jumped so high that he thought his head might hit the ceiling. Hannah let out a shriek, Justin turned around so quickly that he lost balance and fell to the floor, and Susan slipped from where she had been leaning against the statue.

"Well, that caused a bit more of a reaction then I thought it would," said the one of the Weasley twins (who else could it have been?), grinning at them as Ernie turned to face them.

"It certainly did," agreed the other easily. "By the way," he added to Ernie, who could feel himself frowning at them, though not nearly as much as Justin was. "Have you been practicing that jump?"

"You should," said the other. "Jump like that might break the record in a few years."

"You reckon?" asked the other one mockingly, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Oh ,yeah," said the other one, whom Ernie decided to call Fred to simplify matters. "A jump like that would have done a cat proud."

Then, they turned back to face the Ernie, identical grins on their faces. After a slightly awkward silence, where Susan picked herself up, and Justin dusted himself off, Ernie cleared his throat.

"If you've quite finished yelling behind people's backs," he said, trying not to sound to cross and failing rather badly at it, "Have you got anything for us?"

"If you haven't that fine too," said Justin quickly, "We'll make do without."

Fred ignored him. "We've got your basic assortment of tricks…"

"Canary Creams, Skiving Snackboxes, fake wands…"

"If you want some of our fireworks, as seen last week, when you might have noticed them floating around, you can put your name down for some, might take a while though, we've been swamped by orders…"

"Awfully lot of stuff, isn't?" muttered Justin, having walked up to where Ernie was without Ernie noticing.

Ernie couldn't help but agree with him as the Weasley twins continued to rattle off a stream of items, fully half of which had names so confusing that Ernie missed the other half.

"Well, which one do you want?" asked George, when none of them spoke up.

Ernie glanced around. Hannah and Susan were both looking at him, shrugging, and Ernie knew Justin would also be looking at him if he wasn't so busy watching the twins suspiciously.

With the Weasley twins still looking at him expectantly Ernie seized the first thing that came to mind, valiantly trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about. "Canary Creams."

"How many?" said Fred, reaching into his robes.

"Hold on, what are Canary creams?" asked Hannah, frowning and shooting a quizzical look around the corridor.

"It's something you use to cream a canary," said Susan in a tone so serious that Ernie was still wondering how she knew that, when she ruined the effect by giggling madly.

"You eat one and it turns you into a canary," corrected George, glancing at Susan with a look that was as close to bemused as Ernie had ever seen on his face, blissfully unaware that he had just saved Ernie from the embarrassment that of admitting that he had no clue what they did.

"How many?" repeated Fred, taking out a small bag from his robes.

"Six," said Ernie, after a few seconds silence, during which he realized that he had no clue how many he needed, nor how they could get Umbridge to eat them.

"Thirty-five sickles then," said George, holding out a hand and waiting as Ernie reached into his pockets and shoved some silver into his hand.

"Here you go," said Fred, handing the bag out to Justin, who took it very gingerly, as if he was afraid it might burst into flame.

"Thank you," said Justin, not sounding overly thankful

"There's seven in there, but I threw in the last one free," said Fred, grinning at Justin, who was now looking at the bag as if it might explode.

"Is it going to explode?" asked Justin, trying to sound casual.

""Relax, we didn't do anything to it," said George.

"If you're planning something against Umbridge, and we've got a funny suspicion that you are, then who are we to charge for it?" said Fred, grinning at Justin, who nevertheless wasted no time in passing the bag to Ernie.

"Now all we have to do is feed them to Umbridge somehow," he said, scooting away from Ernie.

"How are we going to do that?" asked Hannah, looking at all of them, a small frown creasing her eyebrows.

"Don't ask us," said Fred.

"Yeah, we're just the suppliers to all your mischief needs," said George.

"Hold on," said Ernie, as the twins turned to leave, a sudden idea coming to him. "Do the Creams still work if you mix them in with other food?

Ernie saw Fred and George half glance at each other.

"Yeah," said Fred.

"We can guarantee it," said George.

"You're thinking that you'll just mash it in with her food?" said Hannah, moving forward to get a better look at the bag.

"Unless any of us can think of anything better," Ernie nodded, feeling better now that he had some idea of what he needed to do.

"Good idea!" Hannah sounded impressed, and Ernie sorely hoped that her faith in him wasn't missed-placed.

"Well, if that's all, we're going to head down to dinner," said Fred, indicating himself and George.

"Best of luck with… whatever you're planning," said George, tapping his finger against his nose and winking.

And they walked away, both wearing the smirk of people who have succeeded in their goal, leaving Ernie and the others standing there.

"Should we go down to dinner then?" prompted Susan, stepping out from the alcove that witch guarded.

"Hold on," said Justin, staring at the bag. "How do we know they" here he glared down the corridor that the Weasley twins had disappeared down "gave us the real stuff?"

"Justin," sighed Ernie, tired of his best friend's continual distrust. "We can trust them because if they gave us false creams—or rather, real creams—then no one would buy their real creams.

"You mean their fake Creams," said Hannah. Ernie threw his hands up in exasperation, the bag whacking him on the head as he did so.

"Ouch. I mean, yes, Hannah, the fake ones."

"I'm still not convinced," said Justin, and Ernie resisted the temptation to hit Justin with the bag.

"Then let's try it," said Susan, yanking the bag out of Ernie's hand before he could protest. She reached in, pulled out a cream, and stuffed it into her mouth so quickly that Hannah didn't have enough complete her sentence.

"Oh Susan, are you sure that's… oh forget it then."

"We can't give these to Umbridge," said Susan, swallowing the cream.

"Why not?" asked Ernie, torn before annoyance with Susan for eating five sickles worth of dessert and eagerness for her to turn into a giant canary.

"Their delicious!" said Susan, beaming at them.

Then she turned into the biggest canary that Ernie had ever seen.

Guess it worked then," said Hannah, "But let's hope it wears off."

Ernie nodded idly, watching as Susan the canary examined herself, before suddenly charging at them, catching both Ernie and Justin by surprise. Ernie fell back quickly, just managing to retain his footing and the giant bird squawked in a manner that was eerily similar to Susan's normal laugh.

"Really?" said Ernie, feeling increasingly like he was the only normal person left in the hallway as Susan's feathers began to molt, and she reappeared, laughing breathlessly.

"I couldn't resist," apologized Susan, once she had hiccupped up her way back to seriousness.

"If that's finished," said Justin dryly, "could we please go down to eat?"

"And then back to the common room to hear the plan?" said Ernie, pleased with this plan, since it would give him time to think of a plan.

"Wait," said Hannah, sounding serious, and shuffling the feathers Susan had molted into a pile behind the witch with her foot, and only looking slightly guilty at hiding the mess. "We could be overheard there!"

"Your right," said Justin, staring around wildly. He brightened, then crossed the hallway to a door and pushed it open, holding it open for the others.

Thanks," said Susan, smiling at Justin as she walked through the open door. Hannah followed her, nervously checking that they weren't being watched before rushing in after Susan.

"Fantastic," muttered Ernie, not liking the change at all. However, there wasn't much he could do but to follow his friends into the classroom.

"We shouldn't be interrupted in here," said Justin, carefully shutting the door behind him. "What's the plan, Ernie?"

"Right, the plan," Ernie cleared his throat and gave it his best shot. "Well, we have to put the creams into her food, right? And there's only one way to get to her food without the rest of the school watching…"

"The Kitchens," said Justin in sudden understanding. "Of course!"

"Keep your voice down!" implored Hannah.

"Right. The kitchens. Then we get the house-elves to mash the Canary Creams into her food, they serve it, and then she turns into a Canary in front of the whole school."

"Simple," commented Justin, smiling. "I like it."

"You do?" said Ernie, surprised.

"Just a few problems that I see," said Justin.

"Oh," said Ernie. "I see."

"Well, one, do any of us know where the kitchens are?" asked Justin, receiving muttered negatives. "Well then, how are we going to get the house-elves to put it into her food?"

"We could ask the Weasley—" began Susan.

'No," said Justin shortly.

"Do any of you know what Umbridge eats?" said Hannah, playing with her wand again.

"And for that matter how are we going to make sure that only she eats it?" said Susan, still frowning at Justin.

"And won't the house elves get into trouble?" asked Justin, staring out of a window. "We can't have that…"

"Yes, your all quite right," said Ernie, holding up his hands to forestall any more holes in his plan, which he could admit to himself he had really rather liked. "All right, let's go down to dinner, since I'm personally too hungry to think right anyway, and we can all try and think ways to overcome the difficulties, all right?"

There was a muttered agreement, and Justin stomped back to the door, holding it open once more so that they could all leave once more.

Ernie went last, letting the others get ahead of him slightly. He was confident that, though they might not to anything tonight, or even this week, together they would make Umbridge rue the day she tried to take over the castle for the ministry.

(After all, together, the four of them could hardly fail.)

A/N: Again, I apologize for this taking so long to write. This is the third time I've tried to write this, but really, I have no good excuse. However, the good news is that I already have a fairly good idea what the next chapter will contain. Of course, it's about Fred and George, so really, J.K. Rowling already had done most of the work, but, hey, at least it shouldn't take as long. (Don't hold me to that!)

Thanks for reading, and may your travels be ever safe.