Lee only spent the night in the Infirmary as Madam Pomfrey had predicted, and the school nurse ushered him out of his bed the moment she deemed him well enough to move. This was rather inconvenient to Lee since he realised that being confined to a bed meant that he was able to get much more exam revision done that he would have normally. Mainly because there was less chance of him being distracted by either of the twins, which is what happened most times he tried to study, although it didn't stop him from trying in the following days.

"Just let me finish reading this," said Lee, holding his finger up. He had located a quiet spot in a corridor off of the Entrance Hall. The twins had just arrived on their way to their Charms lesson.

"Finish reading what?" said Fred, bending over his friend's book to look at the title of the chapter. "Why are you reading that? When would we need to know that?"

"For next lesson," said Lee. "Remember? Flitwick said he'd be giving us a quick test on this and whoever got over half of them right wouldn't get any homework."

"Really? Did he tell everyone this?" said George.

"Yes, he said it in class, you and Fred were trying to see who could hold their breath the longest," said Lee.

"Oh yeah," said Fred, smiling. "Who won that again?"

"Both you idiots passed out."

"Ah but who passed out last, cos he would have been the winner," said Fred.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?" bellowed a voice. The boys turned to see that it belonged to Angelina. She and Alicia were stomping towards them with angry looks etched onto their faces.

"I think she's talking to us," said Fred, looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was behind them that the girl could have been addressing. There wasn't.

"What did we do? I can't think of anything," said George, quickly.

"Actually we haven't done anything," said Fred, "well, nothing more than our usual stuff."

"And there's no way she could be angry at us for that," said George. "Not this angry anyway. Hi Angelina, everything okay?"

"What. Did. You. Do?" stated Angelina, each word was said through gritted teeth.

"Before we answer that…" started Fred.

He didn't get the chance to finish his sentence as Angelina had grabbed onto one of Fred and George's ear and began dragging them down the corridor.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow," said George and Fred in unison as they tried their best to keep up with the girl so as not to become detached from their ears. Lee and Alicia followed quickly behind. Lee had his hands pressed over his ears just in case Alicia decided to follow her friend's lead.

Angelina pulled the boys into the Entrance Hall.

"What did you do?" said Angelina, letting go of their ears and holding her arms across her chest.

"What are you on about?" said Fred, massaging his ear with his hand.

"What did you do?" said Angelina one more time. She unfolded her hands and pointed up towards the four House point hourglasses that hung in the Entrance Hall. Each hourglass contained the total number of House points currently awarded to each House as denoted by a gem matching their House colours.

"We haven't touched those," said George. He looked up at the hourglasses and frowned. "Hang on, we're last, but we were in the lead yesterday."

"Merlin's Beard guys," muttered Lee. "What did you do?"

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" asked Fred. He waved his hand towards the hourglasses. "This wasn't us."

"Sure," said Alicia. "Someone else managed to lose us… what? A hundred or so House points? In one night? The only people that could manage that are you two."

"Well I'm not saying it's something we couldn't do…" said George.

"I wasn't giving you a compliment," sighed Alicia.

"It's just we didn't do this," said George, waving his hand towards the hourglasses.

"He's right," said a passing second year Gryffindor with a glum look upon his face. "One of the others overheard McGonagall talking to Flitwick about it. Three first years lost fifty points each."

"A hundred and fifty points in one go? Merlin's Beard," muttered Lee.

"Yeah," continued the second year, "the only good thing was that a Slytherin kid also lost fifty as well but there's no way we can get back in the lead. There's only four or five weeks until the end of school. Such a shame."

"Did they hear which first years did it?" asked Angelina, as the second year headed off down one of the corridors.

"It was Harry Potter and two of his friends," said the second year, calling back over his shoulder.

"Harry did this?" said Alicia, looking crestfallen.

"Are you going to pulled off Harry's ear now?" said Fred, addressing Angelina as he rubbed his ear.

"Yeah, don't you have something to say?" asked George.

"Harry and his two friends…" mumbled Angelina before turning to the twins. "Doesn't your brother Ron hang around with Harry all the time?"

"You can't blame us for what Ron did," countered Fred. "Besides, I'm pretty sure he was still in the Infirmary last night.

"Oh I'm sure he learnt all his rule-breaking from Percy," said Angelina, sarcastically. "Come on, we'll be late to class."

"Yeah, wouldn't want Snape to take house-points from us for being late. We wouldn't want to get further into last place," grumbled Alicia.

"One hundred and fifty points, all in one go," said Fred, still looking up at the hourglasses once the girls had left.

"Well, it was between three," said Lee.

"I know but still, that's got to be some kind of record," said Fred.

"We're not going to beat it," stated Lee firmly.

"Don't be like that Lee," said Fred, slapping his friend on the shoulder. "I'm sure if we work hard and believe in ourselves we could manage it."

"I didn't mean we couldn't, I meant we shouldn't," explained Lee.

"But one hundred and fifty," said Fred, wistfully. "We aren't going to get an award for best exam results but this… this we could do.."

"Tell him George."

"He's right," said George. "We'd be legends."

"No, no, no," said Lee, quickly. "I meant talk him out of it."

"We're already in last place, it's not like it matters," said George.

"Okay put it this way," said Lee. "If Angelina nearly twisted off your ears when you didn't lose one hundred and fifty points imagine what she'd do if you actually lost more."

"That's actually a good point," conceded George.

Although the mood in the school was generally down during exam time anyway, once the news of the lost points began to filter through to the students the atmosphere became extremely sullen. It was the worst amongst the Gryffindor students but members from both Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were also depressed since they were longing to see Slytherin lose the House Cup. The only House that was happy was obviously Slytherin who would clap and cheer when they saw Harry Potter walking through the corridors. Back at Gryffindor House hardly anyone would talk to the first year or the other two who had lost the points; Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom. Harry even tried to resign from the Quidditch team but Oliver wouldn't hear about it.

"You'd think somebody had died," whispered George in the Common Room. Usually there would be excited conversation bouncing back and forth or at least some music playing but since the night of the house-point loss everyone preferred to just sit in silence and talk in hushed tones. "I mean it's been two weeks. You'd think people would have got over it by now."

"It could be worse," muttered Lee, keeping his voice low.

"Yeah, Percy could start trying to cheer everybody up by singing," agreed Fred.

"No, I mean at least we have the Quidditch Cup to look forward too," said Lee. "If we win that, everyone will be happy again."

"But if we lose it, we'll be lucky if we survive until the end of term," countered George.

"Oh here they come," said a voice from the corner of the room. "Try not to lose us any more points while you're in detention."

Everyone turned to look at the new arrivals. It was Harry, Hermione, Neville and Ron. Each of them looked sheepish with the exception of Ron who had a defiant look on his face. The four first years hadn't been seen much since the incident; Harry, Hermione and Ron spent most of their time studying in the Library while Neville preferred the solitude of his room.

"It's not like they did it on purpose," snapped Ron, in the general direction from where the voice had emanated.

"Just leave it, Ron," said Hermione. "Come on, the last thing we want to be late for Filch."

Ron nodded goodbye to his three friends and made his way over to his brothers.

"Can you believe them?" said Ron, gesturing towards the corner of the room with his thumb. "Acting like they've never lost house-points."

"Actually, I don't think he has," said George, straining his neck to look at the boy. "I think that was Tim Ichabod. He's in Percy's year, the two of them are the only ones in their year not to lose any house-points since they started at the school. They've having a competition about it."

"Well he's a prat," said Ron, sitting down on the arm of George's chair.

"No argument here," said George. "What have Harry and the others got for detention?"

"No idea, but they have to meet Filch down at the Entrance Hall."

"Ah well if Filch is involved then you know it's going to be no fun at all," said Fred.

"Yeah, they'll probably have to polish all the suits of armour or clean a bunch of portraits," nodded George. "He really likes his manual labour when it comes to detention."

"I'm gonna wait up for them I think," said Ron, letting out a yawn.

"Well it could be a while," said Lee. "These two have never lost fifty points but some of their detentions have lasted hours. Although that could be because they were messing around when they were supposed to be doing work."

Slowly over the next hour the Common Room began to empty until it was just the three Weasley boys and Lee. Eventually Lee said his goodnights and headed off to bed himself.

"How much longer are they going to be?" said Ron, looking up as the clock above the fireplace struck one in the morning.

"No idea," said George, shrugging his shoulders.

"It seems a bit stupid," said Fred, stretching his body. "They were caught out of Gryffindor House in the middle of the night so their punishment is to be out of Gryffindor House in the middle of the night. That would be like being caught stealing cakes and as a punishment they'd be made to eat a cake."

"That's a punishment I could get behind," admitted George.

"No offense Ron," said Fred, looking up at the clock. "You can wait up for your friends but I don't think I can be bothered."

"Yeah," agreed George, stifling a yawn. "You don't stay this good looking without plenty of beauty sleep."

"I'm sure they'll be finished any minute now," said Ron.

"You said that an hour ago," said Fred "Besides, it's not like they did anything interesting, it's just detention. Anything they are doing we've probably already done."

"Yeah, probably twice," added George. "Let us know how they got on in the morning."

The next day the twins found out that Harry, Hermione and Neville had their detention in the Forbidden Forest, a fact that they found most grating since to Fred and George an entire night wandering the forest actually sounded like a much cooler adventure than their usual punishments. They didn't spend much time complaining however as the end of year exams were soon upon them. A whole year's worth of lessons and accumulated knowledge were tested in a few short days.

It was sweltering hot, something which was made worse by the large stuffy classroom in which they had to do their written exams. The students were given the usual special quill which contained Anti-Cheating enchantments, this didn't stop the twins from trying to circumvent the precautions with a few of their own little inventions. This led to Fred and George having to turn out their pockets while Filch scanned them with a Secrecy Sensor before exams. With the last of the written and practical tests out of the way the boys relaxed with a short jaunt into Hogsmeade for a well-earned bottle of Butterbeer.

"Here's to the end of having to do exams," said Fred, holding up a bottle.

"To the end of the exams," said George, joining the toast.

"You do know we'll still have to do them next year right?" said Lee.

"Shut up and clink your bottle will you?" said Fred.

"Fine," said Lee smiling. "To the end of the exams."

"Seriously? This is 'staying inside the castle' and 'keeping a low profile'?" said a voice from behind the boys.

"Enoch," chorused the three boys.

"You made it," said Fred, as he and his brother got up to hug their uncle.

"Nice to see you too," said Enoch, sitting down next to them. "But really, what are you doing here?"

"We've finished our exams, so we thought we deserved a treat," said George.

"I told you not to leave the school," said Enoch, reproachfully.

"It's the middle of the day, Hogsmeade is full, there's no way Valek would risk attacking us in broad daylight," explained George.

"What if he attacks you on the way back to the school? The route is pretty quiet with plenty of places he could hide in wait."

"We used one of the secret tunnels," said Fred. "Popped up right in Honeydukes."

"Smart thinking," nodded Enoch. He looked around the room for a moment. "I don't see any other students. Are you allowed into Hogsmeade when it's not the weekend?"

"Oh Merlin's Beard no," said Lee, shaking his head. "But we figured the teachers would be too busy finishing up the exams to come into the village."

"Typical," said Enoch, smiling.

"So what's the plan? Now that you're here," said Fred.

"The plan is to keep an eye on things here until you two head home for the holidays," said Enoch. "Once you are safe at home, then I'll start hunting Valek down."

"You're going after him?" said George, swallowing a mouthful of his Butterbeer.

"I have to," said Enoch, shrugging a shoulder. "He's not going to stop, so it's me or him."

"He's after us too, let us help," said Fred.

"No chance," said Enoch, "You two are safe in the school as long as Dumbledore is there. Now that I'm here, hopefully Valek will turn his attentions towards me and when he reveals himself that's when I'll be able to take him down."

"Let us help. Three against one gives you a better chance," said George.

"Four," said Lee.

"Sorry Lee, four against one," corrected George.

"Look, I appreciate the offer lads I really do. But the only way I'm going to defeat Valek is if I'm fully focused on the task at hand and I wouldn't be able to do that if I'm too busy worried about you three. Stay in the castle and stay safe. Now that I'm in Hogsmeade I'm going to let as many people as I can know that I am here. I still don't know if he has a Trace on me, so I'll Apparate about the place a bit as well. Hopefully this news will get back to Valek and he'll try and fight me here."

"I still think you need back up," said Fred, sulkily.

"I've reached out to Lexington in the Auror department," said Enoch. "But I don't know if he'll be able to get up here. He's not officially allowed remember? Just get back to the school and don't do anything stupid."

"Anything stupid? Have you met these two?" said Lee.

Fred and George grumbled the whole way back to the castle as the three boys used the same secret tunnel to return. Once back they made their way down to the lake and spent some of the afternoon lazing next to the water while occasionally tickling the tentacles of the Giant Squid, which was basking in the warm shallows.

"Maybe it's for the best," said Lee as he stretched out on the grass embankment. "Enoch knows what he's doing and we'd probably only get in the way."

"I know," conceded Fred, "but I just wanted to help. How often do you get to face this kind of life or death situation?"

"With you two? At least once a year," said Lee. "Look, no one is going to try and attack us in the school whilst Dumbledore is here, so unless you plan on wandering out into the Forbidden Forest to try and track down Valek there's no point in worrying about it."

"Well…" said George, propping himself up onto his elbows.

"Lexington and Miro couldn't find any trace of him when they went looking, do you think you can do better?" said Lee.

"He's right," sighed Fred. "We don't know the first thing about tracking anyone let alone someone like Valek."

The twins tried their best to relax over the course of the day and to a certain extent they managed it, but that was before Lee brought them some unsettling news regarding Dumbledore.

"What do you mean he's gone?" said Fred, keeping his voice low so that those sat closet to them at the dinner table couldn't hear their conversation.

"What do you think I mean? He's gone," said Lee. "I overheard McGonagall, he got some urgent owl from the Ministry and he's on his way to London. Probably won't be back until tomorrow at the earliest."

"If Valek finds out, he'll attack tonight," said George. "And he'll come after us first."

"That's what I thought," said Lee. "We have to get a message to Enoch. Where's he staying?"

"Er…" said George, looking over at his brother.

"I dunno. Probably at the Three Broomsticks," said Fred, shrugging.

"Right, I'll get down there and let him know," said Lee, quickly standing up to leave.

"Why you?" asked George.

"Valek isn't after me. He doesn't even know what I look like, so if he's skulking around Hogsmeade he's not going to spot me," explained Lee. "You two, go and get the unicorn horns and whatever you can think of to fight with just in case he decides to attack before I get back with Enoch."

"And to think I was worried that the scariest thing I had to face today was my Transfiguration written exam," said Fred, solemnly.

"Er… our written exam today was Charms, not Transfiguration," said George. "I think that was what the fourth years were doing."

"Oh… well that explains why I didn't know any of the questions," said Fred, scratching his chin. "Looks like I failed Charms this year then. Mum is going to kill me."

"Well if you're lucky Valek will do that for her tonight," said George, slapping his brother on the shoulder. "That way you don't have to tell her you failed."

"See, I can always count on you to look on the bright-side of things."