Chapter 17

"Merry Christmas!" bellowed George, as he lifted his pillow over his head and brought it down onto Fred's face. "Where's my present?"

"Oi watch it," said Fred, throwing his arms across him to protect against the blows.

"Give me my present," said George, not showing any signs of ceasing his attacks.

"Okay, okay, okay," Fred shouted, until his brother stopped tormenting him. He leaned out of the bed and fished his hand underneath until he pulled out a poorly wrapped box. He held it up to his brother.

"Thanks. Yours is there," said George, nodding towards Fred's bedside table where an equally poorly wrapped box was balanced.

"Nice one," said Fred. The two boys sat down on their respective beds. They ripped open their presents in a blur of fingers and wrapping. Fred discarded the paper and held up a bag of what looked like small false teeth. "Chattering Teeth. How did you know?"

"Lucky guess?" said George who had unwrapped his present from George and was now also the proud owner of his own bag of Chattering Teeth. He opened the top of the bag, pulled one out and held it up to his mouth. "Hello there."

"Hello there," replied the teeth mimicking George's voice but in a slightly higher pitch.

"Brilliant," said George throwing the teeth down onto the floor where it began slowly moving around the room all the while repeating the phrase over and over.

Fred took out a set of teeth from his own bag and placed it on the floor next to George's.

"Hello there," said George's teeth.

"Hello there," repeated Fred's set.

"Hello there."

"Hello there."

"That is going to get very annoying, very quickly," said Fred, looking down at the teeth.

"I know," said George, nodding his head. "Shall we put some of them in Percy's room?"

"What else would we do with them?" said Fred, shrugging his shoulders. There was a small pile of presents at the end of his bed, he put the bag of teeth to one side and started tearing into the gifts.

Once the flurry of present opening was over the twins were left with a set each of dried Mummy-Eye marbles, (sent by their brother Bill), a Dragon-Tooth necklace (from Charlie), Chocolate Frogs (Ginny), a book on wizard etiquette (Percy, of course), a Muggle watch (Mr Weasley) and home-made biscuits (Mrs Weasley). There was one present they each left to last to open since they already knew what was contained inside. Without fail for as long as either of them could remember Mrs Weasley had knitted each of her children a nice warm, and often brightly coloured, jumper. This year theirs were blue.

"You have to wonder why she puts letters on them," said Fred, pulling on his jumper. "It's not like we're going to forget who they're for."

"I know, and even if we got them mixed up it's not as if we don't wear each other's clothes every now and again," agreed George, putting his own one on.

"Wait, what? You borrow my clothes?"

"Yeah, all the time," said George, frowning. "Don't you?"

"No. Hang on, is that why I never have any clean clothes lying around? Because you're taking them."

"Borrow, the word is 'borrow'," George said, correcting his brother. "And yes."

"I thought I was just losing them. Well in the interest of borrowing, I'm sure you won't mind." Fred crossed over to George's wardrobe, opened one of the drawers and took out a pair of underwear which he then put on before grabbing his trousers. "What? I'm only borrowing them."

"Oh no, that's fine, you can borrow what you like from that drawer since it's actually for my dirty clothes," said George, pointing at the wardrobe.

One quick change of clothes later, along with a barrage of complaining from Fred, the twins exited their dormitories and headed up to see their brother Percy. When they found that he was not in his room they decided to find their younger brother Ron instead, though not before hiding the two Chattering Teeth in Percy's bedside cabinet. Downstairs they found Ron and Harry in the middle of opening their presents. As usual their brother had been given a maroon coloured jumper while to the twin's surprise Harry had also been given a light green one by their mother.

"Harry's is better than ours though," said Fred, holding up the boy's jumper. "She obviously makes more of an effort if you're not family."

"Why aren't you wearing yours Ron," George demanded. He picked it up from the floor and threw it over to his brother. "Come on, get it on. They're lovely and warm."

"I hate maroon," muttered Ron, pulling the jumper over his head.

"You haven't even got a letter on yours," George observed, pointing at Ron's chest. "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid, we know we're called Gred and Forge."

"What's all this noise?"

Percy stuck his head through the door, with a disapproving look on his face. He was carrying his own knitted jumper over his arm.

"P for prefect! Get it on, Percy," ordered Fred, grabbing hold of the jumper. "Come on, we're all wearing ours, even Harry got one."

"I… don't… want…" complained Percy, as the twins force the jumper down over his head and knocking his glasses awry.

"And you're not sitting with the prefects today either," said George. "Christmas is a time for family." And with that the twins frogmarched Percy from the room with his arms pinned to his side by his jumper.

"Will you let me go?" complained Percy, trying his best to free his arms. "This is not dignified."

"Dignified? No. Necessary? No. Funny? Definitely," said Fred, as the twins propelled their brother through the Common Room door and out into the hallway.

"Where are you taking me?" demanded Percy.

"The Great Hall," said George.

"But Christmas Dinner isn't for hours," said Percy.

"Yeah but breakfast is now," said Fred, patting his stomach.

"I've already had breakfast."

"You have?" said George, as the twins stopped in their tracks.

"Yes," said Percy, struggling to put his arms into the sleeves of his jumper.

"When?"

"At six o'clock, like I do every morning," said Percy, finally managing to put his jumper on correctly.

"So why are you coming down to breakfast with us if you've already eaten?" asked Fred, frowning.

"I wa…" said Percy before being cut off by his brother.

"Really Percy there's no need to be greedy," said George, shaking his head in disgust. "No wonder you had trouble getting that jumper on."

"I'm not… I didn't… I…" Percy floundered for a moment. "Sometimes I hate you two."

"Ah don't say that Percy," said Fred, as the older boy turned around and headed back towards Gryffindor House.

"You know you love us really," called George. Without turning around Percy made a gesture with his hand. "Percy!"

"How rude," said Fred.

"Some people have no class."

There were very few people in the Great Hall since the bulk of the children had gone home for the holidays while most of those that had stayed at the school had elected to remain in their nice warm beds. The twins helped themselves to large bowlfuls of steaming hot porridge and chatted loudly across the room with the other children sitting on different House tables. They were soon joined by Ron and Harry, who were sporting their new, rather fetching, jumpers.

"So when do they serve lunch?" asked Ron, hungrily digging into his breakfast.

"You're thinking about lunch already?" asked George, looking down at his brother's bowl which was rapidly being emptied with each spoonful.

"Just wondering about it," said Ron, sending a short spray of porridge across the table.

"It's usually at the same time as lunch normally," said Fred, shrugging his shoulders. "Except it goes on much longer and there is so much food you'll probably need someone to roll you back to Gryffindor House."

"Well as much as we'd like to sit here and jabber on all day," said George, pushing his bowl away and swinging his legs around on the bench, "we've got places to go."

"People to see," added Fred, slapping Harry before standing up himself.

"Things to explode," said George.

"See you later," said Fred, as the pair left the Great Hall. Outside he rubbed his hands together. "Right, where shall we go?"

"Hmm you know I'm not too sure. We could always…" George paused midsentence. He had a strange feeling they were being watched. He turned around. "Oh hi Mr Filch."

"Don't 'hi' me," snapped Filch, wagging a finger at the boy.

"Okay, hello Mr Filch," said George, correcting himself.

"Don't 'hello' me either."

"What about 'wotcha'? Or 'how's it going'?" said George, rubbing his chin as he mused.

"I always liked 'top of the morning'," said Fred.

"I never really understood that, surely if you are saying it as a greeting then it should be 'bottom of the morning' since you always start at the bottom," said George with a frown on his face.

"Not with ice-cream cones, you can't start at the bottom with ice-cream cones. It would all melt out of the hole the moment you bit into the cone," reasoned Fred.

"Is that what that saying is about? Ice-cream cones?" said George, looking rather impressed at his brother's extensive knowledge on old sayings. "But you say 'morning', top of the morning. Who has ice-cream in the morning?"

"I would if I could," said Fred, shrugging.

"Actually so would I. Raspberry ripple, with sprinkles, you've got to have sprinkles."

"And chocolate sauce."

"Well the chocolate sauce goes without saying. It's implied."

"Do you remember that ice-cream we had a few years back at cousin Aphelia's wedding? Now that was a good ice-cream."

"Should we go and see if the House-Elves will make us some?"

"I think it would be rude not too," said Fred, looking serious. "You want to some Mr Filch?"

"No I don't want any bloody ice-cream," shouted Filch, who had spent the last couple of minutes slowly getting redder and redder.

"I know what you mean, who wants strawberry sauce on their ice-cream," said George. "Charlie always puts that on his. It's horrible stuff."

"What in Merlin's Beard are you wittering on about?" said Filch, looking confused.

"Bloody ice-cream. You know? Strawberry sauce. It's what Charlie calls it. He used to try and pretend he was pouring Dragon's blood onto his ice-cream but we always knew it was strawberry sauce. Except Ron, he believed him."

"To be fair though you have been telling Ron that Charlie was a vampire since he was about six years old," said Fred, looking at his brother with professional admiration.

"Now that was a good lie. I still can't believe he fell for it. Remember when we convinced him that Charlie was gonna bite him and turn him into a vampire on his ninth birthday?"

"Yeah," said Fred, grinning at the memory. "He locked himself in his room with a two dozen bags of garlic and rubbed them all over his body. He stunk for weeks."

"It was brilliant," said George. "Sorry Mr Filch, what were we talking about?"

"Talking? We weren't talking," said Filch, glad to get the conversation back on track. "We don't talk. I tell you what to do and you do it."

"That's right, and you want us to get you some ice-cream. No red sauce, only chocolate," said George, staring at the caretaker for confirmation of his order.

"No I don't want ice-cream," snapped Filch, spitting slightly in anger. "I want you two to know, that there are only a few dozen students staying at Hogwarts over Christmas and of those only about five have caused me any trouble and over those five you two are the worst."

"Ah thanks," said Fred, pretending to be bashful.

"It's not a competition," snarled Filch.

"But if it was, we would be the winners right?" asked George, hopefully.

"What it means is that until term starts again, and all those other miscreants return, the only ones I'm going to be concentrating on are you two. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I'll be there watching and waiting for you to slip up," said Filch, waving his finger at the two boys. "And when you do…"

"What?" said Fred, after a few seconds.

"Stupid as well as lazy are you?" demanded Filch, taking delight at talking down to the boys. "I thought I explained what was going to happen in short simple terms."

"Oh I got that part. You're going to follow us around blah blah blah," said Fred, waving a hand dismissively. "What I meant was, 'and when you do'… what?"

"What?" said Filch, frowning.

"Exactly," said Fred, nodding encouragement at the man.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well you said 'and when you do'. And then you left a dramatic pause but you never finished what you were saying."

"Just get out of my sight," shouted Filch, angrily.

"Righto Mr Filch," said Fred, snapping off a quick salute.

"What did you decide about the ice-cream?" asked George.

"Get out of here," bellowed Filch.

"All right, all right," said George, hurrying away after his brother. "He can be so touchy."

"Don't worry Mrs Norris," muttered Filch to his pet cat, which was now weaving its way between his legs. "We'll get them this year." Mrs Norris purred her approval at this statement. After a few seconds of silence the caretaker's stomach grumbled. "Do you fancy some ice-cream?"

Filch was true to his word and spent the next couple days hounding the twins. Every time they stepped out of Gryffindor Tower they would find the caretaker, or his beloved cat, waiting to follow them wherever they went. Worse was that he kept such a close distance to them that they found it next to impossible to disappear down any of the secret corridors that they would usually use to escape from the Filch. The presence of the caretaker outside Gryffindor House didn't stop the twins leaving as much as the cold weather. Inside the Tower it was warm and cosy, in the rest of the castle it was teeth shatteringly freezing so Fred and George spent much of their time inside and would only venture out when their stomach demanded a snack.

It was definitely weird having a dormitory room that normally housed five boys now only containing two but Fred and George found that they rather liked the new arrangements. It went from being a room they had to share to their own room, and since it was their own room they decided that they could do whatever they wanted with it. The first thing they did was to manoeuvre the beds and chairs around the room in a circle and took it in turns to try and run around the room jumping on to each bed and chair in turn without touching the ground. After several laps they realised that it was far too easy so tried to devise more and more complicated ways of completing the task.

"Okay it's about four feet in front of you," said Fred, as he watched his brother prepare to jump from a chair onto one of the beds with a blindfold on while hopping on one foot. Fred thought the he probably only stood a fifty-percent chance of succeeding and even then he was being generous.

"Right," said George. He swung his arms back and forth a few times before crouching low. He jumped. Fifty-percent chance was definitely being generous. Although he managed to get enough lift to make the jump to the bed, the blindfold made if much more difficult to stick the landing and he found himself flopping forward onto the mattress and bouncing across before landing haphazardly on the floor. George pushed the blindfold up onto his forehead with one hand while he nursed a painfully bruised shoulder with another. "That could have gone better."

"Next time when you land bend your knees," advised Fred, who was lying on his bed with the Marauders' Map open in front of him. "And maybe don't topple forward quite so much. It might be an idea not to scream like a girl either."

"Your turn," said George, throwing the blindfold over to his brother.

"Nah, you're alright," said Fred pulling up one of the legs of his trousers. There was a nasty looking red mark across his shin which looked like it had started to bruise. "I think I'll try and recover from this first. You have another go."

"I think I'll pass," said George, still massaging his arm. "Any joy?"

"No, Filch is still there," said Fred, shaking his head. The only way the twins were able to leave Gryffindor House, and be sure that the caretaker would not follow them around the building, was to keep their eye on the Marauders' Map and wait for Filch to nip away for some food or to use the toilet. Fred sat forward. "Wait. Forget that. It looks like he is moving. Yes, he's moving. Okay we don't have much time."

The twins sprung into action. George rushed over to their wardrobes, picked out a coat and thick jumper for each of them while Fred pulled out a small backpack from underneath his bed. George put on his clothes and threw the other set towards his brother who caught them deftly in one hand. As his brother put on his jumper and coat, George swung the backpack over his shoulder, wiped the Marauder's Map clean, rolled up the parchment and put it into his pocket. The twins headed out of their dormitory, grabbing a woollen hat each as they left. They rushed down the stairs, through the empty Common Room and out of the door of Gryffindor House. It had taken roughly sixty-seconds from Filch leaving his post to the twins stepping out into the hallway.

"This way," said George quickly, pointing down the corridor towards the closest secret passageway. Fred took out his wand and tapped the frame of the old painting three times. With a faint click it slowly opened and the two boys rushed inside and pulled it shut behind them.

"Right, time to cause some mischief," said George, smiling in the darkness.