The rest of the night passed quickly. Ron sat next to Harry and Neville at dinner and ate little. Professor Trelawney came down into the Great Hall for the first time in a long time, and spent an unnerving amount of time staring at Ron with hefty, fixated eyes. Ron finished his plate quickly and went straight to bed.

As he lay in his bed, quite alone in the room, he began to picture a ring of fire and soon he was dreaming. He dreamt of a great many strange things. He dreamt of a pair of sea witches, he dreamt of a man in a blue box, he dreamt of a group of women floating through the air and then his dream took a turn for the worse and he dreamt of orally pleasuring the twins.

With a gasp he awoke and promptly fell back into sleep and this time without dreaming, he drifted back into oblivion.


When Ron awoke the following morning, it was by the urgent prodding of one Harry Potter. Harry jabbed him sharply, and despite Ron's best efforts to swat and curse him away, he persisted.

"Mph… Mngh! Harry! Piss off already… I mean it… literally…"

"Oi, get up Ron," frowned Harry, nudging the increasingly drowsy Ron, "I need to show you something."

"You know, I've had nightmares start this way," scowled Ron but he arose regardless. Moving into an erect position, he squinted at Harry.

"Well what is it?"

Harry thrust a parchment onto Ron's lap.

"What is this? The latest edition of Hunk Rump magazine?" ejaculated Ron grumpily.

Harry drew out his wand and prodded the parchment tenderly, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

He pulled open the map and pointed to a pair of dots in the Common Room, neatly labelled Fred and George Weasley.

"You woke me up to show me this?" Ron asked incredulously, "I'm going back to-"

Harry punched Ron and pulled him back down onto his ass.

"Now look over here by the Honey dukes passageway."

Ron's gaze drifted to a second pair of dots, also labelled Fred and George Weasley.

"Huh that's weird. Guess the map must be faulty. It had a pretty good run though; it's like twenty years old right?"

Harry shook his head.

"The map never lies, Ron. It's never been wrong before. Something's up and we should check it out."

Ron sighed.

"Does this mean I have to change out of my pyjamas?"


"I hope you recognise I have other stuff I could be doing right now," complained Ron, "Its pretty life or death stuff with all these deadlines hanging over me."

"I highly doubt that," scoffed Harry (Ron noted the irony), "now shut up and help me solve this mystery or go back to bed."

"Alright I'll see you later," yawned Ron as he turned back for bed but Harry swore and pulled him back.

"That wasn't a choice you twit. It was more like… a rhetorical offer or something?"

Ron shrugged and followed Harry down the staircase. He was not in the mood but of course, Harry's needs had to come first.

While Ron suddenly realised the sheer amount of innuendo that had occurred, Harry entered the Common Room and was immediately greeted by a chipper Fred and George.

"Hello lads. Care for a kip or a fag?" queried Fred in a mocking upper class voice. Mocking accents seemed to be what they were enamoured with this week.

Harry thrust the map into their faces, "Care to explain this?"

The twins shared a peculiar glance, showing an expression Ron could have sworn resembled… guilt?

"Well isn't that peculiar? What do you make of it George?"

"It's strange to think but maybe the map is finally malfunctioning? It had a pretty good run though; it's like twenty years old right?"

"That's what I said," started Ron but Harry interrupted.

"It's not at the end of its run, it's working just fine. I've encountered stuff like this before with Peter-"

"You know what else is at the end of its run," blathered George, "The Chudley Cannons. That team hasn't won a match in years."

"Shut up," scowled Ron, stung, "The Chudley Cannons are a damn fine team, a damn fine team. They came close to winning a game last season."

"A loss of 4-13 is not what I'd call close to winning Ron."

"Shut up. They are amazing."

Before George could interject with evidence to the contrary, Harry interrupted them all.

"Stow it! Now look here! This map is never wrong, it wasn't with Barty Crouch and it wasn't with Peter Pettigrew. Enough bollocks about 'map malfunctions', there is something weird and presumably magical going on and I intend to find out what that is. Come on Ron, we're off."

And with that he once again dragged a reluctant Ron after him and through the Fat Lady's hole. The pair vanished into the hallway.

Fred and George locked gazes.

"Think they'll figure it out?"

"Nah, Hermione is the smart one. We're good."


In a quarter of an hour, Harry had got the other twins on the map cornered.

"Come on Ron, wands out. We don't know who they are, they could be Death Eaters or God knows what else. Get ready to attack if need be."

Despite his insistence that he didn't care, Ron took out his wand regardless.

They leapt around the corner and came face to face with the twins. The pair of them was out of breath but neither looked surprised to see Harry and Ron appear.

"Hello lads. Out for an early morning walk?" they huffed.

"I could ask you the same thing," grimaced Harry, "what are you two doing down here?"

"Well after you left we decided we'd go for a walk. And looks like we just happened to meet up with you here, outside the Honey dukes passage."

"You ran all the way down here? Why?" frowned Harry.

"We uh… remembered we left one of our experimental devices down here. Top secret, very… magical."

Ron raised his hand, "If you were just upstairs, what did we talk about?"

Fred stroked his chin, as though straining to remember.

"Bloody hell," gasped Ron obligatorily. Harry gave him a bemused look, and Fred and George raised their eyebrows with a sudden realisation.

"I believe it was about the malfunctioning map," said George stroking his chin, "and then we discussed the Chudley Cannons did we not?"

"Bloody hell."

"Yes," said Fred, once again stroking his chin quite heavily, "that was the gist of it. Then Harry steadfastly refused to believe the map could be fooled and raced down here to meet up with us."

"Bloody hell."

"Ron, what the hell is your deal," snarked Harry, "could you stow it for a minute?"

"Sorry Harry," apologised Ron resignedly, "I can't really control the 'bloody hells'."

Harry turned to face the twins, who concealed grins.

"Well okay, if you just came down here, how do you explain the fact that you are still present as being in the Common Room on the map?"

The twins' grins momentarily slipped.

"We- we- well shit. You caught us Harry," they laughed, "Can you keep a secret?"

"Sure," Harry confirmed warily, "what is it?"

The twins looked around shiftily and leant in close to Harry.

"We're working on a device that makes it impossible to detect your location. A magical device. We hoped it would fool the map because- well it's the best detecting thing we know of. In Hogwarts, that is," blithered George.

"What is it?" asked Harry curiously.

The twins dug around in their pockets and pulled out a pair of badges.

"This is it. Yeah, we enchanted them or something," blurted Fred, "And it looks like they totally worked."

"Hey, aren't these badges from the Ministry of Magic?" asked Ron, "They've got the names and everything."

"You tell us Ron," said the twins cryptically.

Harry retreated and threw a final question at the twins, "So it's just these enchanted badges that makes your names appear in two places?"

"Totally," smiled Fred.

"Okay, well you should have just told me earlier," laughed Harry, "Fare thee well."

And with that strange farewell, he ran away and back up stairs.

"Fare thee well? What's up with the sudden use of Ye Olde English?" asked Fred stroking his chin thoughtfully.

"Bloody hell."

Remembering Ron's presence with that outburst, the twins approached Ron and thrust at him with oblong objects.

"What's all this?"

"That, dear Ron," smiled Fred, "is about a pound of firecrackers and incendiary devices. We suspected you might need us to supply you with these. That's why we waited for you by Honeydukes."

"You waited for me?"

The twins winked.

"Better follow Harry back upstairs. Don't want him to suspect your involvement."

"My involvement in what?"

The twins refused to divulge and pushed him after Harry. Ron reluctantly sprinted after his comrade, and headed back to the Common Room.

"That was pretty close," said Fred with a sigh, "Harry nearly trapped us a few times there."

"Doesn't matter, we fooled him," declared George, "Now let's get going. Three turns should do the trick."

And with that, they left.


When Harry re-entered the Common Room, he saw the twins back in their seats as though they had never left.

"You guys got back here quickly."

"Well we ran back. We wanted to save these seats."

Harry's gaze narrowed.

"What was the last thing I said to you before I left?"

The twins exchanged worried looks.

"Goodbye?"

"Seeya later?"

Harry relaxed.

"Okay, just double checking."

He smiled and dragged Ron back up the stairs, whom by now was stick to death of Harry's vice-like grip and insistence on literally dragging him everywhere.

"Well Ron, at least we know they were lying," said Harry grimly, "Something is going on, but the twins are not nearly as innocent as they seem."

"Really?" asked Ron sarcastically, "Who could have known they would dabble in strange and disturbing arts?"

"Look Ron," began Harry, "I know you're feeling shitty for some reason, but if you keep this up, I'll just investigate this with Hermione."

Ron rolled his eyes, "Fine good. She'll be more useful to you anyway."

Harry dropped Ron and stormed off. He was going to solve this mystery; just how could the twins be in two places at once?

Ron of course, thought he knew the answer. After all, he was privy to knowledge that eluded both Harry and Hermione, despite the fact it was usually him that was out of the loop.

He thought back to a point on the contract, one that had seemed impossible until today's events. He was just glad he had been able to conceal his knowledge from Harry, as the twins had been able to conceal their knowledge from Harry and Harry had been able to conceal his knowledge that the twins were concealing their knowledge from Harry.

There was one explanation that seemed to explain everything.


Point 6/7– The obligated, one Ronald Bilious Weasley, is under Unbreakable Vow to complete the following to the very best of his ability. He must obtain, legally or otherwise, one Time Turner, fully functional in the proper properties (capable of time travel) and deliver it unconditionally to the dynamic duo, Mr Fred and George Weasley. Failure to complete this task by the end of the month will result in Mr Weasley's death.


Sure, it was a load off his chest to know that he would succeed, at least with this point, but the obvious question remained.

Why would the twins need a time turner, presuming he was successful in obtaining them one?

To Be Continued…