If the twins were caught off guard at all, they didn't show it in the least. Not at all actually, what with their jaws hanging open, blank stares at Hermione's earnest face, and Harry's curious one. Especially not when they turned to face each other as though asking if the other had the answer, and then looking back at the two without the answer.
"Well... if mum's trying to muck up your life..." Fred answered with a hesitant voice.
It took a minute after Fred left off that George continued, "We thought you would think we were planted by her..."
"We aren't by the way," Fred cut in quickly, his eyes showing the actual fear of losing the interesting friends they had just made not a week ago. "But we thought you might be thinking that..."
"And well... we were worried about losing our fun little first years..." George admitted, the twins for once losing all signs of their usual prankster nature, and instead looking dead serious. "It's only been a week, but you two are our mates..."
"And we'd like to keep it that way," Harry cut in, getting a smirk out of the twins. A smirk which blossomed into a full smile as Hermione nodded her agreement. "Look, I know adults don't always act right by their kids, but you two seem to be the types that don't listen to what others say blindly."
"Besides, you could have kept it a secret," Hermione pointed out with simple deductive reasoning. "And the best way to have us not know would be to have kept silent. We wouldn't have been able to figure it out without many hours pouring over old yearbooks, if she even went to Hogwarts at all, and then we would have had to look for her marital records. You saved us both a lot of time, and gave us a preemptive warning about her. Both of which wouldn't be in-line with her plans whatever they are for Harry. Unlike Ron, who most likely would have hampered Harry's growth academically, and most likely forced him to overeat or not talk to the teachers about his home life."
"Put that way Hermione... I'm not so sure I could trust any of you..." Harry stated with a thoughtful look on his face. It held for a moment until a smile broke over his face. "But your hearts were in the right place with the teachers. And even if the twins are pranksters, they are very protective of us, and I've yet to see them prank the Hufflepuffs or ourselves..."
"That's by my request Harry," Rowena answered from her portrait, "It figures you would be in one of the roosts after hours..."
"The Rebel's Roosts... I like it..." Harry offered with a pleased smile to his face.
"So do I..." the others agreed, even as Rowena nodded in confirmation of the new name.
The rebels fell silent, looking at each other in a new sense of understanding of the bond that they've formed in the short time that they'd known each other. It was a warm, companionable silence that Harry felt like savoring for every second that he was able to. The others didn't feel like leaving the roost either, and so they just remained, basking in the silence as well.
"Do we stay here until the morning, or should we make it back to the dorms?" Hermione asked after a while, bringing everyone's thoughts to the here and now. "I mean Lady Rowena can go to through the portraits, but we'll have to manage with just the map..."
"We've managed just fine with it for the past half of a year," Fred answered defensively while George pulled out the map, activating it. "It's a wonderful invention by our predecessors the Marauders, the sheer brilliance of it has many possibilities waiting for us to explore... It..."
"Is showing that we'll be here for a while mates, Quirrel and his lover Riddle are in the owlery right now..." George cut in during the proclamation of the virtues of the Marauder's Map. He paused to view the entire route before them, taking it through multiple routes. "Huh... that's odd... Professor Sprout's in the forbidden hallway tonight... If we are quiet, we might just be able to sneak through there..."
"But if we're caught we could be killed... or worse expelled..." Hermione countered worriedly before chewing on her lower lip and looking over the map herself.
"Hermione... We can find another school, I bet..." Harry cut in, "I don't think we can say the same for another life."
"Umm... yeah..." Hermione answered as though scolded, her eyes focusing on the map nervously, before pointing out a clear hallway on the fourth floor, which would leave them just a set of stairs away from the entrance to the common room. There were even convenient hiding areas lining the hallway that they could use to keep from being discovered.
"If we go now, and be quiet, we can avoid Quirrel and make it down this hallway with little trouble. Unless there are portraits there..." Hermione paused looking up at Lady Rowena who shook her head slowly, indicating that there were none. "Right then... let's go..."
Fred levered up the trap door and peeked out, looking up and down the hallway before flipping over and landing on his feet softly. He then helped Harry and Hermione get down, before George joined them, pulling the door shut behind him. With a single point from Hermione, the group was off, with Fred acting as guide and scout.
They'd actually made it to the hallway before Fred ducked into a room, Harry and Hermione chose another room, while George took a third. All of them were as silent as the grave as they leaned up against their respective doors. The soft footsteps thundered in their ears as they held their breaths, hoping and praying to any deity available that no one found them.
It seemed some divine favor had heard them, as the footsteps simply continued on without a sound. Fred and George emerged from their rooms first, and were surprised when almost a minute later their younger charges were still missing. Fred nodded towards the room that the two had ducked into, and George moved over and knocked softly on the door. When no response was heard, save for muffled mumblings, the twins opened the door and found the two younglings staring at a mirror.
'Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi,' Fred read out in a whisper, wishing he had a piece of paper to write that down. After all it sounded like a forgotten language, and if he learned it, writing warnings for pranks would be delightfully easy.
"My... my parents... and.... more... can it be... family?" Harry asked suddenly, looking lost in the mirror's depths. Next to him Hermione was staring at it, looking deeply thoughtful, with just a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
Taking two steps towards the two, the twins reached out and shook their younger counterpart's on the shoulders, not daring to look into the mirror. Instead of having them jump under their grips, the younger two simply turned to look at each other, and then the twins in turn. "Did you see?"
"My family... my real family was there and they were proud of me," Harry stated happily while pointing back to the mirror.
"I saw myself in a great library, while... umm..." Hermione seemed to pause as a blush burnt her cheeks a rosy hue. "We should get back to the dorms... shouldn't we?"
"I don't know Gred... I think little Harmony here is holding out on us... what say you Herry?" George asked with a devious smirk.
"I agree with Harmony Forge, we should get to the dorms... but take the mirror so we can study it..." Harry answered, glad to have finally figured out which was which in the game. Not that it had been bugging him that much.
"Take it and study it he says Forge..." Fred answered with a devious smirk, "I would like to know what it does and how... but we have to learn the transfiguration spell in order to copy it... And maybe a little Legilmency to delve into our dear Harmony's mind... And Occulmency..."
"Aye, much to learn we have... but for tonight we away to the dorms while the path is clear..." George answered in a heroic stage whisper, pointing out the door. After checking the map to ascertain the coast was clear, they made it to the common room door in record time, and Fred didn't even have to finish listening to the riddle before he spouted the answer.
"Handy trick of the map, it gives the password for the doors," George offered once they were inside, under the watchful gaze of Rowena. It would seem that the Rebels had made their first daring after curfew raid. All that was left was to retire to bed, so that they were up bright and early the next morning.
They got halfway to the stairs going to the dorms, when a small figure walked up to the boy's side. The sight of him cause all four of them to freeze in their tracks, especially when they saw a deep frown on his normally cheerful face. "I do not like taking away points from my own house..." Flitwick started in a grave voice. "Especially not from four exceptionally gifted students as you four are shaping up to be..."
"Professor, it's my fault..." Harry stated, coming forward in front of the others. "Hermione and I had gone up to the owlery to send a letter for Hermione, and got distracted talking to Hedwig... the twins came to bring us back and the stairs wouldn't align for us... Please don't punish them."
"Yes Professor," Hermione chimed in, while coming even with Harry, "Professor Dumbledore had told Harry not to be alone while he was out in the castle, and I'm afraid I was the one that distracted us while getting to know Harry's marvelous owl Hedwig. If the twins hadn't come and gotten us, I dare say we'd still be up there talking to her as the bells chimed. Please Professor, it was my fault that we were late, can't you just let the twins slide this once?"
"I see..." the part-goblin murmured while smoothing out his chocolate colored mustache. "Well then, I suppose fifty points from both Mister Potter and Miss Granger for their tardiness... and detention for all four of you tomorrow evening in my classroom... Misters Weasley, you both gain ten points each for going to help your fellow students. I'm afraid I have to knock off some points for not coming to find me or one of the prefects first, I would have given you a pass, or the prefects could have escorted you. Now get on to bed you four."
"Yes sir," echoed the four students as they slipped past the short professor, and disappeared into their respective stairwells. Little did any of the four of them know that they each did the same thing upon entering their rooms.
Each one took a piece of scrap parchment and scrawled out the message on the mirror. None of them knew the answer, but they felt that having it around would make it easier to solve.
When they got around to it, of course.
The following morning, while going through the grooming ritual that Mir instructed him to go through, Harry found something interesting in the reflection. "Hey Mir... if I were to enchant a mirror, to say... act as a portable for you... what would I have to do?"
"I'm not an expert darling, but I know part of it is to write the commands in mirror language..." Mir answered while trying to figure out a way to tame the boy's raven locks, she hadn't given up on that one yet, not in the least. "It's so nice that you want to have me portable, after all, you could probably use a touch up now and then, you absolute joy, you! But part of my duty is to make certain you learn how to work without me."
Harry had tuned her out, as a smile spread over his lips. Mirror language, that's the clue he needed to solve this riddle. And riddle it was, since the answer was sitting right in front of him. 'Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi,' turned into 'i show not your face but your hearts desirE' in the mirror, if one were to realign the spacing between the letters. It was possibly the easiest code in history to break, but that was the beauty of it. Most people would look beyond the simple, especially when it came to enchanting an item of such power as the mirror had to be.
Finishing up his grooming, he hugged Mir's vanity top and practically skipped out to the common rooms, despite the books weighing him down. Once again, he found that not everyone was an early riser, as the only other person in the room was Lady Rowena, and she was sleeping in her picture.
Taking up a seat by the window, he settled in to watch the sun rising slowly in the distance. There was a simple magic in the rising of the sun. One that he'd never gotten a chance to enjoy growing up with the Dursley's. There was a lingering fear about what was going to happen come the summer, but that was pushed aside by the gentle, warming glow of a ball of ever-burning gases ignited some thousands of miles distant from the Earth, which it lent its life-giving rays to the mere mortals upon the planet.
Maybe he should consider joining the Quidditch team, or just getting up to go jogging at this time in the morning. When there was not another soul about, just him and the morning. With a heavy sigh, he remembered Dumbledore's order to not go out alone, and wondered if he could convince one of the others to join him. Fred and George seemed interested, and were planning on being on the team. Hermione would be his preferred companion, but he didn't know if he could ask her.
"Penny for your thoughts mate," Fred's voice cut through his thoughts, forcing him to look over his shoulder to find Fred walking up to him, stopping next to the boy, and looking out of the window too. "Saw you standing here and thought you could use some company..."
Harry smiled warmly at the older boy, realizing that Fred had been the one to take the lead when the younger pair had problems. It was like he was a protective big brother to them. "Hey Fred... just thinking about going jogging... I don't want to wake anyone up early, but it'd be nice..."
"Heh that it would mate..." Fred answered with a laugh. "Been a busy first week, huh mate?"
"Yeah..." Harry replied distantly as the week flashed through his mind. It had been far busier than even he realized, but for some reason he found he wouldn't have traded a second of it. Both the good and bad seemed to have an underlying sense of acceptance that he'd always longed for. When his mind came to last night, he found himself remembering his early morning discovery. "I solved the mirror's riddle..."
"By looking at the riddle in the mirror?" Fred cut in with a chuckle. "Silver caught me writing it last night, and told me the translation. Surprised me to say the least at what it came out as..."
The two boys chuckled at that, letting the silence return naturally. They simply stood there, enjoying the rising of the Sun over the Eastern horizon. The silence remained, even as the remaining two Rebels joined them at the window, looking out over the grounds. Finally, Harry broke the silence with a simple question.
"Shall we go out and cause some havoc?"