It was only after McGonagall's detention that the Marauders managed to shake off the last cats and returned to the Gryffindor tower. Fred's little prank had earned them another week long detention from Wickerey, the strict, unfair, Slytherin-prefering Defence professor. But that wasn't the thing that they were worried most about…

Ever since they'd sent out Peter for their prank, he was nowhere to be seen. Not only didn't he show up for all the lessons, he was also absent from their joint detention, which most fortunately had only consequences for Peter himself. Minnie was irate.
At first it had pissed them off – they were betrayed, as Sirius put it – but as the evening became darker and turned into night, that aggravation was replaced by concern.

When they turned the doorknob to their dorm, they half-expected to find Peter already in his bed, snoring away undisturbedly. He wasn't.

Sirius was the first to step inside and throw his bag onto his sheets, then turning on his heels to face his friends heading to their own beds. "Well, what will we do? Wash up and make ourselves comfortable for the night, sneak off to set off dung bombs under Fred's bed, or find out where Peter has been hiding all afternoon and pull his useless bum out of the trouble he's gotten into?"

Just as he finished his sentence, something squealed and a rat shot from under the bed besides Remus', straight at Sirius.

"WHAT –" Sirius looked ready to jump out of the way, but instead the rat stopped right in front of him and began staring – staring! – at him expectantly.

"Is that the same rat as this afternoon?" James queried, genuinely curious but a bit giddy about the whole affair still.

"I think so." Remus answered, more serious. "What would it be doing here?"

"Maybe it's some tail of Fred's prank, however lame." James would never admit he'd been quiet impressed – and annoyed – by the extent and durance of the prank; it had seemed like all cats at Hogwarts had been following them around, all day.

Then the rat squealed again, loudly, almost startling Sirius onto his bed and getting everyone's attention, and shook its head fervently.

"Wait, did it just… shake its head?" The rat turned around to James, looked him straight in the eyes and nodded, in a fashion that would nearly be described as desperate.

Sirius kneeled down, making it turn its head back again. He frowned solemnly, hoping he wasn't imaging everything and now making a fool of himself. "Do you understand human language?"

Again it nodded, and shrieked, like it wanted to tell them something.

Sirius threw himself back, bemused, resting his head on the mattress. "Okay. I'm meeting a talking rat."

"Well, talking isn't the word." contradicted James, who now had plopped down on his bed as well.

"Can you write?" asked Remus, hoping to make communication with the rodent easier, and to everyone's surprise it nodded again.

Remus got his inkwell and a piece of parchment out of his bag, deducing a creature with such tiny paws wouldn't have any use of a quill. He opened the well and placed both objects on the floor, ready for the rat to write with. It went over, sat on its large back paws, dipped one of its miniature hands in the black liquid and wrote five large capitals:

PETER

Sirius' mouth fell open. "You know where Peter is?"

It looked at him in a way as if it would've rolled its eyes if it could. Then it scurried to the head of the sheet, and added above the name:

I AM

"You're Peter!?" James exclaimed, stating the obvious, "But you're a rat!"

When Remus glared at him, he took a moment to consider what he'd just said and his face burned a shameful pink. "I'm sorry. What happened?"

It – Peter – dipped its paw in the ink a second time, to scribble clumsily between the black paw prints.

FRED

"Fred turned you into a rat!?" Sirius cried out indignantly. "The little bastard! How dare he –"

"The relevant question is: how could he?" Remus cut in.

"That's the same!"

Remus narrowed his eyes. "No, the way I meant it, it isn't. What I wanted to say was: how could he – as a second year, who only just started Hogwarts – turn a human into a rat? You know how much research we've done on Animagi, and you know what they said about turning people into animals, even if it isn't yourself! That's final years stuff, and even they often don't get it right! Then how could he, even younger than us, with zero experience, do it!?"

James shrugged. "Well, maybe he hasn't zero experience," he suggested reasonably, "how would you know, maybe it was the very first thing his parents taught him! Home schooling doesn't need to be poor if your parents are decent wizards. And we know his parents knew how to get through the Hogwarts wards..."

"Did they? Or was he lying?" Remus asked sharply, "Everyone knows breaching the Hogwarts wards should be impossible. So if he told the truth, his parents should be extraordinarily powerful wizards who don't shy away from experimental magic. Possibly dark. Either way, it sounds all highly suspicious to me."

Sirius chuckled. "Says the werewolf..."

Remus sent his friend an aggravated glare, who immediately felt guilty.

But that wasn't even all, James recalled. When they'd decided to become Animagi, to help Remus through 'his moon-lit period', Sirius and he had immediately claimed the animals they'd like to be - they'd even already come up with fitting nick names. Always the most thoughtful one, Remus told them one of them should be a small, quick animal, to take out the Wiping Willow. As usual, Peter drew the shortest straw, and would become a rat.

They hadn't told what animal they would be to anyone, not even Madame Pomfrey, who was the only one in the know of these Animagi plans. If even she didn't know, then how did Fred?

As James mentioned this to the group, Remus decided it would probably be coincidence, so it better shouldn't be mentioned to Fred - although they should keep their eyes open around him. They agreed to confront Fred tomorrow, so they could now bring Peter to the Hospital Wing and see to it he became human again. They could only hope Madame Pomfrey had some kind of antidote.

Fred opened his eyes on his own bed, in his own room, surrounded by dirty clothes and boxes full joke products, looking straight at a sleeping George. The warm morning light trickled into the narrow, dusty room, and he heard the familiar bustle beneath him of Diagon Alley. He felt he'd had a bad dream, but one which he now could only scarcely remember, and didn't matter anyway.

Soon greedy customers would fill the street, and Galleons would be handed to whatever early riser could offer them the right product. Before then, Fred needed to open the shop.

He walked through the door of his appartement, down a few flights of stairs, into the familiar kitchen of the Burrow, where mouth-watering smells of egg and saucages met him and his many siblings joked and quarrelled around the small table, as they used to when they were younger, and, frankly, as they still did as adults. Everyone was there: Charlie was talking about school and showing off his Captain's badge to him and George, Ginny was complaining Ron took all the bacon, Percy was, as usual, ignoring the noise and reading a book, and even Bill was there, with Fleur and their new-born baby, letting him be cooed over by Molly and Arthur. The scene made him smile, this were things as they were supposed to be, now Voldemort was gone - their family, eating breakfast.

He paid them no further heed however – he and George hadn't eaten breakfast with their family ever since they moved out, they were too busy with the shop. So instead he went outside, into the brightly lit backyard. There, underneath the old oak surrounded by gnome-holes, sat a twelve-year-old version of himself, together with a just as old version of George, huddled over their chocolate frog card collection. That summer, they'd planted the first seeds from what had now grown into the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Well, the products and inventions came only later, but the fundamental, profit-oriented thinking that was the basis of every shop in Diagon Alley – the kind that could turn an otherwise wild idea into a thriving business – had spurted right there. The sale of their frog card collection.

That reminded him of his initial plan – to open up the shop. He quickly went inside the house again, leaving their cheerful chatter behind, wondering where again the shop was. Once inside, all sounds seemed to mute, until the soft ticking of their mother's clock was the only thing to be heard. How odd, he thought, he knew he'd been to the shop from the Burrow before - he had to be, the shop was their living after all - but he seemed unable to recall how exactly to get there. How inconvenient everyone had finished breakfast and left by now, or he could have asked someone. But their father had his work, Bill was running some errand for the order, and their mother had left to Diagon Alley with Ron and Ginny, to buy food for Scabbers.

Scabbers. Fred frowned, something wasn't right there. But that was unimportant right now, first he needed to find their shop.

Luckily, as he walked into the living room, he found his twin sitting on the couch. Of course, George had woken up as well, ready for a full day of work, waiting for him. He surely would lead them the right way, if only he wouldn't see Fred had forgotten where there shop was, that would be embarassing.

"'Morning, Georgie." he greeted merrily the back of George's head. To his surprise, George ignored him. Hadn't he heard him, or was he again to caught up in some invention or another?

He rounded the couch, still talking to his twin. "Come on, George, wake up! The shop is waiting for us!"

This time George snorted, something Fred took a bit of offence in. What had he done to him recently?

"How would I ever be able to enter that place again?" His brother's voice sounded grim and angry, not like his brother at all. And why would he talk that way about their shop? It was George's dream as much as it was Fred's, right? It was their dream, their appartement, their shop, never had George voiced any argument against it, never had he hinted he might want to go his own way.

"George?" Fred turned around, taking a good look at George. He seemed perfectly fine at first glance, but no one knew George as well as Fred did, so no one picked up anything out of sort quicker than he.

It appeared he hadn't been looking quite well enough, as there actually was a lot wrong with George's appareance. First of all, George wasn't wearing his bright work robes, like Fred had thought, but rather old Muggle clothing he seemed to have been wearing for a while. His face was unshaved, his hair was uncombed, and the circles beneath his eyes were so deep he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. Empty bottles Fire-whisky and other stuff Fred didn't even want to know about littered the floor at his feet and he looked thin and greyish, like he was in dire need for a bath and a meal, and his eyes, his eyes…

His eyes looked in the distance, to a place further than Fred could see. They were red-rimmed, like he'd cried, cried for days and simply not able to cry anymore.

"George!?" He ran over, kneeling in front of his twin. "George! Georgie, you look terrible! Are you feeling okay!?"

Finally George's eyes focused on his brother, and he sent him a cutting, ice-cold glare. Fred was shocked to see this expression on the face of his twin, even more as it was directed at him. "Of course, I'm not okay! Why should I be!?"

"Then what is wrong!?" Fred demanded alarmedly.

The temperature in the room fell with at least twenty degrees, and George jaw clasped shut. Then he stood up, shoved Fred roughly out of his way and marched away through the front door.

Fred hastily scrabbled upright and followed him, over the road, along fields and cattle, farms and villages. Finally, they reached a green open place surrounded by trees, the backyard again, Fred realized.

There George collapsed. He now made barely any sound, but the sobs shook his body as he clamped onto the tussocks, as if he wanted to be there, to regain something that had been buried right there, meters beneath the earth.

He was talking, almost inaudible by the choked crying. Fred came closer, wanting to hear his twin, but mostly wanting to comfort. Nevertheless, the things George said befuddled him.

"You promised… you promised you wouldn't leave me alone! I asked, you said, then why aren't you here! Then why am I alone! I can't be! I'm not supposed to be!... Please, Fred. Please come back. I don't know what to do without you. I don't know who I am, how to live without you…" George was interrupted by a heart-wracking sod, followed by a pained grimace.

He couldn't see him, Fred realized. He was right there, kneeling besides him, his arm across George's shoulder, but George couldn't feel him, didn't know he was there.

"Fred… Where are you? Please come back. I can't live without you. I've tried, but I can't. I really can't…"

Only then did Fred see the gravestone.

Fred Weasley

01-04-1978 – 03-05-1998

He lived for light and laughter,

He died fighting against the dark.

Our dear twin, son, brother and friend,

You'll always be the light in our hearts.

But he couldn't be dead, he was right there. But George couldn't see him. Could he have died, and not realized? Didn't he die in that dream he'd had? But that was reality, wasn't it? He'd died, but then travelled back in time, and now lay in a dorm in the Gryffindor tower. That's where he'd truly wake up, not in his apartment above the shop, which didn't even connect with the Burrow. That was absurd. This whole situation was absurd. He was dreaming right now. But that was no reason to believe that in the real world George wasn't crying, mourning his death -

Fred opened his eyes on a Hogwarts four poster, in the Gryffindor dorms, surrounded by dirty clothes and trunks full of school supplies, looking straight at a sleeping Norman. Reality sunk in. His heart was submerged in a pool of ice-cold water.

The next morning, when he entered the Common Room with his new friends, three of the four Marauders awaited Fred.

The tension was immediate. Remus, James and Sirius were staring at him as Fred stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes wavering from one gaze to the other, Cornfoot and Zabini nearly stumbling over him. This was either about the prank, which he found unlikely, about Peter, in which case he should find an explanation and quickly, or they'd discovered his identity as time-traveller, in which case he should dismiss the notion, ensure they kept their traps shut or, if all else failed, stun and obliviate the entire Common Room.

"'Morning," he greeted, thinking it best to directly get to the point, "there is something you wanted to say to me?"

"Weasley," James was the first to speak up, ignoring the curious, annoyed or guarded glances from the several other occupants of the Common Room. "Did you turn Peter into a rat yesterday?" His words were cool and calm, just a question, not an accusation. Not yet.

Fred's first instinct was to look at his twin, who would look at him, then deciding on an answer together through looks, but he quickly pushed those thoughts away. Instead he decided on the answer himself, and directly replied: "Well, yes. He was standing alone in the hallway and I thought -" he thought 'you dirty rat, you call them your best friends but you betrayed them as soon as that seemed convinient. And you would do it again, now, anytime! Maybe you were better off as Scabbers anyway...' "- that it was the ideal opportunity to prank him."

"He's been missing all day!" James yelled, his calmth long forgotten, "It was through sheer luck he managed to get into our dorm, or he might still have been running around as rodent! Where was he supposed to find food, shelter... ever thought of that!? What would have happened if we hadn't found him!?"

He would've found a nice, cosy family, and joined them as their beloved pet, Fred thought spitefully. Hell, he still owed them for those years of food and shelter, but instead he chose to revive the Dark Lord, and let Death Eaters torture Hermione at the Malfoys. Fred wouldn't have felt an ounce of guilt if Pettigrew grew hungry for a night.

"But you did find him, right?" Fred chose to reason, "And else he could've gone to the Hospital Wing, or to one of the teachers. He could've made to anyone clear who he was, and else he could always have come to me." Fred shrugged. "It was just a prank, like any other. I really don't see why you're acting so uptight about this." To his surprise, sniggering came up from the back of the Common Room.

"This is not just a prank, and we are not acting uptight!" Sirius snapped defensively, "And do you really think he would have come to you!? He is bloody terrified of you!"

"It is just a prank," Fred insisted, "and I thought you could take a joke. I'm sorry if I was mistaken." he ended huffily. The Marauders didn't seem to take his 'apology' well.

"It seems he's got you, Black!" someone teased from near the fire.

Sirius scowled to the girl who'd spoken up, before turning back to Fred. "This is not what this is about! We can take a joke, but this was mean. This was a Slytherin thing to do!" James nodded vigoriously in agreement.

"Get off it, the two of you! What Weasley did is no different from the kind of things you do 'as a joke'! You should've gotten hexed, though, instead of Pettigrew!"

Fred felt incredibly glad for the help he got from these two girls in corner, even though they got Peter totally wrong. He took a quick glance at them. The one who'd spoken first had a round, friendly face and dark hair, and the other one had fiercely red hair, though a few shades too dark for a Weasley. Prewett maybe, but the youngest Prewetts he knew were his uncles Gideon and Fabian. So probably not.

"There is a difference!" Sirius exclaimed once again indignantly, but then he glanced at Remus, who shook his head, and Sirius' shoulders slumped. "Fine!" he shouted after a moment of scowling. "We'll take it as a joke, though not a very good one. But it's a truce until Pete is out of hospital, got it? And no more picking on Peter!"

With that, he turned on his heels and stormed away, shortly followed by James who glared at Fred for half a second longer, just to make clear he was no less angry than Sirius was. Remus stayed there for a moment, indecisively, his frown deepening and his mouth opening as if he was on the verge of asking something, but then he changed his mind and followed the other two on their way to breakfast.

"Don't worry, kiddo. They might be miffed, but they really had it coming. At least, I don't feel any regret for them." The red-headed girl - no Weasley or Prewett, but red-headed all the same - smiled at him, clearly enjoying the fact the Marauders got pranked for once.

Fred shrugged. "No bother. I just hope they'll forgive me after some time, I wouldn't want to create any animosity within the Gryffindor House." He then turned to face the two with a smile. "Fred Weasley, by the way. I'm a new student in the second year."

"Lily Evans, third year." the red-head introduced, and Fred had to call on all his restraint to keep his mouth from falling open. Harry's mum. His look flitted to her eyes. Green as fresh pickled toads…

Then the girl beside her said: "Alice Bredwell, friend of Lily."

Minerva had felt immensely relieved when she found Peter safely in the hospital wing that morning, though the accusations that came with him made much of the tension of that night return. She hadn't slept well, that night, and much of it was once again because of the Marauders.

Only this time, it weren't their own jokes and actions that had made her toss around in worry. Her apprehension began when instead of four guilty faces, only three of the self-acclaimed Marauders appeared in front of her door to make the assigned lines. Immediately suspicious, and not without reason, she demanded to know from the three where their friend Peter was, why he wasn't with them and if he didn't understand that she expected all of them to turn up for their misschief.

It had taken quite a bit of arguing and insisting, but they had sworn they had no idea where he hung out themselves, he'd been gone for the whole afternoon, didn't turn up for lunch or dinner and they had even gotten detention from Mr Wickers because Peter was gone, which was so unfair! They certainly had seemed angry at their friend, especially Sirius, who spoke about 'abondoment' and 'betrayal' and made some not so nice suggestions about what Peter might be doing all the time.

As she made them write their lines, McGonagall's worry silently grew worse. A bit of enquiry confirmed the Marauders were currently engaged in a 'prank war' with Fred Weasley, hence all those cats she'd had to magically lock out of her office. The second year who had disconcerted her from the beginning, when Dumbledore told her he'd suddenly appeared in a seventh floor corridor, presumably from the future. She would always follow the Headmaster, but she couldn't really understand why he had trusted the boy on his words alone.

Even Dumbledore admitted that the means by which Fred Weasley had time-travelled were most likely dark and experimental. According to the Headmaster, the boy had assured him he hadn't known how this had happened and not even expected it himself, so Fred shouldn't be blamed for the incident but rather be protected from whomever did this to him or who otherwise wanted to do him harm. Weasley had seen enough. Dumbledore would not entrust her the details, but confided that the circumstances previous to Weasley's 'departure' were disquiting, possibly traumatizing to the boy and made everything that much darker.

And then, not even a day after Fred Weasley had enrolled the curriculum, a student had mysteriously disappeared. She hadn't wanted to blame the boy, but it was disconcerting, even Dumbledore should see that.

Now it was clear Peter had merely been changed into a rat and was on his way to normalcy again, it still ruffled her that it was Fred who'd been the culprit. She remembered how he'd annoyed and impressed her on his first lesson, and how his prank on the Marauders had inspired awe amongst his peers - and the older students of the school. No one knew how he'd done it, but combined with the other things he'd accomplished that day, it was abundantly clear to her that Fred was a very capable wizard for his age. And combined with the complex, dangerous magic that had transported his here, it just didn't sit well with her, not at all.

She would bring her concerns to the Headmaster.