The remainder of Fred and George's Sunday was spent attempting to fix Percy's trunk. In the end, they had to get Bill to do most of the work, but George was fairly sure he could replicate the spell that had been used to make the goo in the first place so it wasn't a total waste of time.
They were both agreed that it would be best to give Percy some time to calm down before they brought up the subject of his boyfriend again, so the twins patiently waited until dinner on Monday to seek out the Pettigrews. Unfortunately, Peter left dinner before George and Fred had set up camp outside the Great Hall, but they spotted Agatha Pettigrew on her way back to the dorms.
"Excuse me," George called from the corner the twins had been hiding in. "You're Agatha Pettigrew, right?"
Agatha nodded. She looked a bit confused and a little wary, but she walked over to George anyway.
George smiled in a way that was supposed to be reassuring, but only made Agatha narrow her eyes. "Aren't you two those Weasley boys that lost Gryffindor eighty points for changing the instructions on Professor Snape's board."
"Oh, yeah," George said, his smile widening. "That was one of our better ones, if I do say so myself. 'Course, about half of the class was reading out of their books and made it right, but it took the rest of them almost an hour to figure out why they couldn't get their potions to turn green."
Fred cleared his throat loudly.
"But that's not what we wanted to talk about," George said, "We actually wanted to know about your brother Peter, because-"
"Peter," Agatha repeated blankly. "I don't have a brother named Peter. Sorry." In the moment of stunned silence that followed, Agatha began to walk away. She stopped half a second later, her face lighting up in recognition. "Oh, you mean Porter."
"No, it was definitely Peter," Fred said. "His first name isn't Peter, is it, and he just goes by Porter because he likes it better." Even if Peter Porter Pettigrew was a horrific tongue twister that no parent should burden their child with.
"We saw a plaque in the trophy room with the name Peter Pettigrew on it," George said by way of explanation, "for special services to the school and we were wondering what they were. Do you have any cousins?"
"None with the last name of Pettigrew," Agatha said. "My dad's only brother died in the war." She frowned thoughtfully. "I don't suppose you remember the date on the plaque."
"Not really," George said. "It looked new, but that doesn't mean it is. Do you have a Granddad Peter or something?"
"No," Agatha said, "But my dad's brother, the one who died in the war, was named Peter. Dad won't say hardly anything about him, but Grandmum showed me his Order of Merlin so it would fit right in if he'd performed special services to the school. It'd be neat to learn more about him."
George felt the smallest bit guilty that there was no plaque to show Agatha. "I'm sure it would be," Fred said, "Do you want us to show you the plaque?"
George glared at his Fred, wishing that telepathy was real so that he could tell his twin off for getting a perfectly nice girl's hopes up.
Fred noticed the look, if not quite getting the reason for it. "What?"
"Nothing," George said, "but I hope you remember where the plaque was because I don't."
"I'm pretty sure I do," Fred said, still not sure what he had done to upset George. "Mostly. I remember its general location, or at least some of the trophies near it. Maybe. I think. I can probably narrow down which half of the trophy room it was in."
Agatha chuckled. "I take I shouldn't count on either of you to be able to find it in anything resembling a short amount of time."
"That would seem to be wise," George said. "You might be better off looking on your own."
"No. I'd love it if you helped me look," Agatha said. "I've got homework to do tonight and don't think I'll finish it all, but I should be free Wednesday after dinner. Would you be able to go then?"
"Sure," Fred said. "We got all our homework done over the weekend. Meet here?"
"Right," Agatha said. "I'll see you Wednesday then. Good night."
"Night," Fred and George echoed back. They remained where they were as Agatha headed down the stairs towards Hufflepuff. Fred waited for her to disappear from view before he said anything to George. "What was that about?"
"What were you thinking, telling her that we'd help her find the plaque?" George said. "You know there isn't one."
"So we can't find it," Fred said. "What a shame. It's not like we gave her reason to think we were reliable or anything. Besides, she would have gone looking on her own after you told her about it."
"Yes, but I don't want to be there when she finds out it doesn't exist," George said. "Plus it won't take her nearly as long to search the trophy room if she has two people helping her than it would on her own."
"She's a Hufflepuff," Fred said. "They do that entire pull-together thing. If we don't help her, she's probably got half a dozen friends who will. Watch, she'll probably bring them all with her on Wednesday. And what did you tell her there was a plaque for if you didn't want her looking for it."
"It was the first reason I thought of for us to be wanting to know about Peter Pettigrew." George threw his hands up in exasperation. "I didn't know he was her dead war hero uncle that she doesn't know anything about!"
Fred still wasn't sure what this had to do with anything, so he decided to change the subject. "I suppose you think that helping Miss Pettigrew with her search is a bit of a waste of time, since we are no closer to finding Percy's boyfriend than we were this morning."
"We can do this again tomorrow," George suggested. "Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We're bound to catch him at one of them. Until then... To the common room?"
"Sure."
