"Great, you're there," said Enoch, who's head had emerged through the fireplace just as the clock struck midnight. "I wasn't sure if you'd understand my message."

"You know us, Uncle, there's nothing we don't understand," said George, huffing onto his fingernails and rubbing them against his shirt.

"I remember quite a few of your homework essay's that would contradict that," said Enoch. He frowned for a few seconds. "What happened to you two? Did you get attacked again?"

"Oh this?" said Fred, waving his damaged arm in his sling. "A birthday present from George."

"Of course," nodded Enoch who, like most relatives of the Weasley's knew the dangers of being around the twins on their birthday. "I had planned on being there for it, but travelling has been a bit slow."

"How come?" said Lee.

"Hello Lee, thanks for the message," said Enoch. "Good thinking about you sending me the message and not the boys. Can't be too careful. That's why it's taking me so long to get back to Britain. Every time I travel using magic it doesn't take long for that Valek guy to show up. I'm assuming it's him. There can't be that many people out there that want to kill me this badly. Three, maybe four, at most. Not more than five anyway."

"Can he do that? Track your magic?" asked George.

"It's possible. Wizard and witches have the Trace on them until they are seventeen, that way the Ministry will know about any underage magic, and I've heard of some wizards having the Trace placed on them when they are older as punishment for some crimes. But those are very rare, temporary, and part of the spell involves consent, so I don't think it is the same," said Enoch, shaking his head. "I've been using Muggle travel mainly and it seems to be working. Anyway don't worry about me, I'm more worried about you. Have there been any further attacks?"

"No, not since the one we told you about," said George. "We even had two Aurors come down and search the Forest for a week."

"Aurors?" said Enoch.

"Well one Auror and one Auror-in-training," said Lee.

"The Ministry's official position is that Kosa are extinct. I'm surprised they would acknowledge their existence by sending an Auror. Which one was it?" asked Enoch.

"Lexington," said Fred. "Although he wasn't here officially. In fact he said he'd get into trouble if the Ministry thought he was looking for Kosa."

"Lexington," nodding Enoch with a smile on his face. "Good man, great Auror, if he couldn't find any trace of the Kosa in the Forest then there is a good chance it's left the area. How did you escape anyway? Lee's message didn't go into too much detail."

The twins animatedly described the events of the night they were attacked by Valek, and once Enoch had clarified and, more importantly, worked out which parts the boys were embellishing, he had a much clearer picture of what had occurred.

"That's not good," said Enoch, once the boys had finished their tale.

"Us not getting killed is 'not good'?" scoffed George. "Charming."

"No, obviously that part is good. The part that's not good is that there was something in the Forest that made Valek scared. There are very few things that would or should scare a Kosa and the fact that one of these is running around the Forest is a bit worrying," said Enoch, thoughtfully.

"Well it could have been scared of the unicorn," said Fred, scratching his chin. "Don't forget that was there as well."

"Could have been but I'd rather not take any risks," said Enoch. "Do me a favour will you? Stay out of the Forest for the next while and if you're going into Hogsmeade make sure you don't wander off on your own."

"Sure," said George.

"We promise," added Fred.

"No, no," said Enoch, quickly. "Don't make this like a promise you make to your mum. This isn't a 'we'll promise not to do it but we'll do it anyway because we're only actually promising we won't get caught' kind of deal. This is a 'promise you won't do it but not actually doing it' kind of promise. Understand?"

"Fine," sighed the twins in unison.

"I'm serious boys," said Enoch, sternly. "I think whatever was in the Woods scared off Valek for the time being but I would still bet he's hanging around somewhere at least. I've got a plan but I need time to get it into place but I need to know you're going to be safe."

"What's the plan?" asked George.

"I'm going to set a trap for Valek," explained Enoch. "I'm using Muggle travel so he can't locate me, once I get to my destination I'll call in a few old favours and we'll set something up. Then I'll Apparate into the same spot. If I'm right about him having some kind of Trace on me then it should alert him to my whereabouts and bang, he'll walk straight into it and we've got him."

"What if he doesn't turn up?" said Fred.

"If he doesn't turn up, it means that he doesn't have a Trace on me and I can just Apparate up to outside Hogwarts myself without worrying that he'll attack me right away."

"How long before you can set that all up?" asked Lee.

"I don't know the exact date but I'd say a couple of months at least by the time everything is in place," said Enoch, he carried on before either of the twins could complain, "I know, I know, that's a long time. But I have to be careful, I'm only going to get one shot at this and I don't want to miss my chance. You're safe at school as long as Dumbledore is there and you don't take any unnecessary risks."

"But two months of behaving? That'll ruin our reputations," said George, shaking his head.

"Would you rather be dead?" asked Lee.

"Er…"

"Well would you?" added Lee.

"Hang on, I'm thinking about it," said George. He let out a sigh, "I suppose not."

"I only said don't go into the Dark Forest and no wandering off from Hogsmeade," said Enoch. "I didn't say you had to behave yourselves."

"Oh," said George, perking up, "well that okay then."

"Just be careful and watch your backs," explained Enoch. "I'll keep you informed of how everything is going okay? Let me know if you notice anything suspicious."

"Like what?" asked Fred.

"You know… suspicious," said Enoch. "Anything weird or strange."

"At Hogwarts? That could be anything."

"You know what I mean. Just be careful. Take care lads," said Enoch.

"You too," said George.

"Yeah, see you," added Fred, as Lee waved bye to their old Defence Against the Darks professor.

"Two months and no Forest," said Fred, shaking his head after Enoch's head disappeared from the fireplace. "People will start thinking we're Percy or something."

"I think it'll take more than that," said Lee. His friends looked at him quizzically. "I mean you've done plenty of rule-breaking within the school without having to go into the Dark Forest."

"Aw, thanks Lee," said George, slapping his friend on the shoulder, "you really know how to cheer us up."

"You know something else that'll cheer you up," said Fred, turning to look at his brother.

"What?"

"I won," said Fred, tapping his fingers against his eyebrows. "Shaving time."

"Again?" said Angelina the next day at breakfast, when Lee and the twins sat down on the bench opposite the girl and her best friend Alicia. The Great Hall was packed with people so there was the usual loud hum of conversation to go along with the delicious smells wafting from each of the tables.

"It's hardly a surprise is it?" said George, picking up his cutlery and looking along the table to see what dishes he fancied today . "We have breakfast every day."

"Well apart from when you had that weird vomiting illness thing," said Lee, stabbing a fork into some sausages as he began to load his plate with food.

"Oh yeah," said George, shaking his head. He grimaced at the thought. "That was not a good day for eating, or for anything that didn't involve being within dashing distance of a toilet."

"No you idiots. She meant your eyebrows," said Alicia, pointing towards George's head with the end of her knife. Since he had lost the bet his face was now completely devoid of eyebrows. Fred, despite the gloating, had felt bad about this and had generously glued his brother's eyebrows onto one of the mirrors in their dormitory so when George stood the right way it gave the appearance that his reflection wasn't missing anything important. George did not think this was as kind-hearted as his brother did.

"What?" said George, theatrically. He picked up a spoon, looked at his reflection and recoiled in mock-horror. "Again? I take my eyes off them for one minute and… tsk honestly. Should I put up a missing poster in the Common Room?"

"I've given up caring at this point," sighed Angelina.

"Wait? So you care?" said George, attempting to wiggle his eyebrows and failing miserably since they were currently glued to a mirror several floors up in the boys' dormitory.

"Why? If she did care how would that make you feel? Surprised? Confused? Angry? I can't really tell," said Angelina, dryly. She mimicked each emotion as she spoke. She turned to look at a new arrival to the table. "Oh hey, Oliver. What's with the outfit?"

"Where were you?" asked the Quidditch captain, looking between the two girls and the twins expectantly. He was wearing his uniform and had his broom slung over his shoulder.

"Right here," said Alicia, indicating the table in front of them. "You know? Breakfast? Most important meal of the day."

"Really?" said Fred, frowning. "Most important? Surely that's got to be lunch."

"Pfft, listen to this idiot," said George, nodding towards his brother and rolling his eyes. "Lunch? Try dinner. No competition."

"No, I'm going to have to agree with Alicia," interjected Lee. "Breakfast all the way. It sets you up for the day."

"Ignore them," said Angelina, waving at the three boys and turning to look at Oliver. "What do you mean 'where were we'? We don't have practice until this afternoon."

"Breakfast? You've just woken up, you're hurrying to class, you're fighting to stay awake. How can you enjoy any meal in that state? It has to be lunch."

"Don't you remember? Last night?" said Oliver, impatiently waiting for one of his teammates to remember. "We all agreed that we'd do extra morning practices from now on until the Ravenclaw game. You can't all have forgotten."

"I'm still fighting to stay awake until the afternoon. Dinner is best. Lessons are out of the way, you can relax afterwards, you can take your time and have seconds and second seconds."

"No, don't remember that at all," said Alicia, shrugging her shoulders. She looked over to her friend for confirmation.

"Doesn't ring a bell," agreed Angelina, shaking her head.

"Wouldn't that be thirds?"

"No, Lee. Having thirds is greedy. Second seconds is just when you take what you would have had for seconds but couldn't because your plate was too full."

"Seriously, you don't remember?" said Oliver, putting the end of the broom down on the ground and leaning on the handle. "We were in the Common Room discussing tactics and then one of you said 'shouldn't we be doing more training' and I said 'good idea, how about extra morning sessions?' and everyone was going 'great idea', 'nice one,' 'wish I had thought of that'."

"Why don't you just fill up a second plate instead?"

"Two plates? We're not animals. Well Fred is, you know, for picking lunch over dinner."

"Pretty sure we didn't have that conversation," said Angelina, frowning. She looked up at Oliver intently. "Are you sure you didn't just dream it or something?"

"No, come on stop messing," said Oliver, laughing slightly to himself. "We all agreed on the morning practices, then someone suggested we find some free time to work on tactical theory, then we were attacked by that giant flying hamster… oh hang on… okay, there's a small chance that might have been a dream."

"Boys," said Angelina, shaking her head. She put her knife and fork down on the plate and swung her legs around to stand up. "You're all idiots."

"Some more than others," agreed Alicia, also getting up and throwing her bag over her shoulders. She nodded at the twins and Lee who were now engrossed in the argument over which meal was the best.

"Sorry about that," said Oliver, scratching the back of his head. "I don't suppose you'd be interested…"

"No," said Angelina, wagging her finger. "Exams are only eight weeks away. No more extra practice. I won't have time to study."

"But we have exams every year," said Oliver. "How can you compare that to the chance of winning the Quidditch Cup?"

"No," said Angelina, firmly one last time before leaving with Alicia. The other girl shook her head at her captain when it appeared he was about to appeal to her better nature instead.

"Doesn't anyone care about Quidditch?" said Oliver, forlornly as he watched the two girls head out of the Great Hall.

"I care," said Lee, compassionately. He waved a fork-speared sausage in his direction.

"Thanks Lee," said Oliver, turning around. "I knew I could always count… er… what are they doing?"

"Them?" said Lee with a mouthful of food. Fred and George where rolling around on the floor mid-scuffle. "They're fighting over which meal is best after breakfast."

"After breakfast?" said George, as he stopped punching his brother in the arm.

"Are you mental?" said Fred, propping himself up on his elbows.

"I just think…" said Lee. Before he could finish his sentence his friends grabbed a shoulder each and dragged him backwards off the bench. "No, I'm not part of this. Stop it. Stop! That's it, you're dead. "

"I'll er… be off then," said Oliver after a few moments of watching the three boys scrapping on the floor.

The end of year exams were fast approaching, which meant that the various professors would increase the workload while encouraging more studying during the students' free time, something of which most of the children took to heart. Fred and George were not most children.

"Come on Lee," complained George, who was slowly jabbing his friend in the shoulder with his finger. The three boys were down in the Great Hall. Lee, like a number of other students, had a few books open in front of him and a large parchment where he was writing down notes carefully.

"I'll be done in a bit," said Lee, batting away his friend's hand. "Just let me get to the end of this chapter."

"Or how about you just come with us now and you can finish the chapter later?" said Fred, who was sat on the other side of Lee, nudging him with his elbow.

"Because whenever you guys say 'come on, what's the worst that could happen?' one of us ends up in the Infirmary," explained Lee.

"Right," nodded Fred.

Lee stopped writing and looked over at his friend. "You do know that's a bad thing right?"

"Er… you get to miss class and they bring you jelly and ice-cream. How is that a bad thing?"

"I was talking about the pain that usually comes from having to go to the Infirmary in the first place."

"Pfft, details. Come on Lee, we've discovered something cool in the Astronomy Tower," said George, pleading with his friend.

"What?"

"It's cooler if we showed you," said Fred. He reached out a hand and slowly closed the book from which his friend was reading.

"I don't know why you are so bothered about exams anyway," said George. "I thought we'd taught you better than that."

"My parents are planning on going on holiday for the summer, and they said they'd bring me with them if I get good marks. If I don't I've got to stay with my aunt Beryl."

"And that's bad is it?" asked George.

"Imagine someone as boring as Professor Binns, as pleasant as Snape, as strict as McGonagall and as disgusting as Filch. I'd rather stay with that person than with aunt Beryl. So that's why I need to study."

"Don't they say you should make sure to take enough breaks when you study," said George, slyly.

"That's right they do say that," agreed Fred. "That's what we're doing right now. We're just taking a break."

"You do know that to take a break from studying you actually need to attempt some studying at some point?" said Lee.

"And we plan too," said George.

"We're just getting all the breaks out of the way in one go. That way we can get a good bit of studying done right at the end."

"Well I suppose…" began Lee.

"Brilliant," said George, grabbing hold of his friend's arm and dragging him up from the table.

"You won't regret this Lee," said Fred, helping to usher his friend along.

"What about my books?" said Lee, trying to look over his shoulder.

"Oh they'll be there when we get back," said George, dismissively.

The boys made their way to the Astronomy Tower. It was dark and poorly lit but you could still just about see where you were going. They slowly made their way up the staircase. Every few steps or so George would take out a vial from his pocket and spill a few droplets down onto the inside railing on the side of the staircase. Despite Lee's queries, neither of the twins would tell him what the liquid did until they had climbed all the way to the top of the Astronomy Tower.

"Right, now what?" said Lee, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I thought it would be obvious," said Fred. He used one hand to grip onto the railing of the staircase while he swung his leg over and straddled it. He looked like he was perched on his broom.

"Sliding down the banister?" said Lee in an unconvinced tone. We do that every time we have Astronomy class."

"Yes," said George nodding his head. "But what we don't do is use this rather special potion." He waved the vial of liquid he had applied to railing all the way up the tower.

"And that is?" said Lee.

"It started off as an All-Purpose Polishing Liquid, but we worked out a way of giving it a bit of a kick," said George.

"A bit of a kick?" said Lee, uncertainly.

"Yes, now it's…what was the word you used, Fred?"

"Frictionless," said Fred, still perched on the banister. "Or at least that's what the potion book said. Frictionless. Which should mean we'll get down these stairs in record time."

"Ready, Fred?"

"Ready, George," confirmed Fred. "One, two, three…"

Fred pushed himself backwards down the stairs. He started off quickly and seemed to steadily gather pace as he whizzed towards the ground floor. George and Lee watched him as best as they could looking down the centre of the staircase. When he reached the end he disappeared from sight and there was a muted thumping sound.

"Fred," shouted George. "You okay?"

"Yeah," said Fred, his voice echoing faintly from below. "Worked perfectly."

"Well then," said George, mounting the banister like his brother had done previously. "And away I go."

Lee watched as his friend took the same journey as Fred. Speeding along the railing before disappearing from sight at the bottom. Lee waited a few moments contemplating whether or not he should attempt the decent. In the end the thought of the merciless teasing that he would get from his friends if they saw him walking down the stairs was enough to convince him to climb onto the banister.

"Here goes nothing," muttered Lee. Rather than pushing himself off like his friends he just let go.

He slowly made his way down around the first turn, gradually getting faster as he went. At first it was rather fun but after a few turns he realised he might have been going a bit too fast so he tried to squeeze his thighs and hands against the wooden railing to slow himself down. Unfortunately this seemed to make absolutely no difference to his speed, in fact he continued to get faster and faster. He began panicking as the end of the stairs drew closer and closer, as he tried to work out how he was going to stop. He figured his best chance would be to try and land on his feet and skid to a halt. It was a risky plan, made even more difficult by the speed he was travelling and the fact that he was going backwards.

As he rounded the last turn he readied himself. Lee shot off the end of the banister and into the air. He placed his feet down and tried to brace himself forward so as to prevent him from toppling over. He failed. Rather than gradually skidding to a halt, the sudden attempt to stop his progress resulted in him completely losing balance and sent him sprawling backwards onto his bottom. He continued rolling in a haphazard manner until he slammed into a stonewall in the corridor. Fortunately he avoided any serious damage given that both Fred and George's bodies were between his and the wall, however it did still hurt a significant amount.

"Ow," said Lee, sarcastically. He rolled onto his back. "Why did I expect this to go any differently?"

"I'm thinking we need to put something soft against this wall," muttered Fred in a pained voice.

"I dunno," said George, "it wasn't too bad."

"That's because for you I was the something soft against the wall."

"You said it worked perfectly," said George.

"The banister bit did. Just not the stopping. Plus I really thought I could get out of the way in time before you got down. I was very wrong," said Fred, wincing. "You okay there, Lee?"

"Remind me again how this is better than studying?"

"At least we didn't break anything," commented George.

"Yeah, it could be worse," added Fred.

"Yes, it could," agreed Filch, standing with his arms folded over his chest.