©Sunrisepainter: Because of Snape
3. Amourosis
„And what did he say?" George was waiting impatiently at the gargoyle.
"Oh, this and that. That we shouldn't fight anymore and he'll take measures if we do it again."
"And?"
"And what?"
"So did he punish you?"
"Yeah!"
"With what?"
"We still have to work together on this project!", Fred grumbled. His brother sighed:
"That means trouble!"
"That's for sure. If Shycates will still be so feisty, I can't guarantee for anything!"
George didn't answer. He knew that his brother was right for the most part. Hope always was abrasive with them, but didn't they give her every reason to do so? When he though about all the pranks they pulled on her, he could understand her anger. But why did she have to be the perfect victim? Dutiful and orderly. Just like their big brother Percy, likewise a victim of their jokes.
"Let's go to the common room", Fred interjected his thoughts, "Lee will be already waiting for us!" Together they went to the Gryffindor tower.
After the talk with Dumbledore Hope withdrew to the library. The only one being there was Hermione Granger. She sat on a table bending down over a book and chewing absentmindedly a strand of her brown hair. Hope liked her. She shared her own passion for books and also was a responsible person. If she hadn't only been friends with Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley! They always seduced her to break some rules or to do something stupid. Friends were needless anyway. They always brought trouble and embarrassed you.
Hope grabbed a book with the title "Jinx and Counter-Jinx which send chills down you back" (Didn't a book like this belong to the security area?) and fell down onto a red armschair.
But she couldn't concentrate on the text. She zoned out again and again. That she had to work together with Fred Weasley was just direful. He wouldn't lift a finger while she had to do all the work on her own. Or worse: he would make bad jokes. Since she knew the twins they've always terrorized her.
Start of Flashback
A little girl with blond, long hair stood shyly at the station Kings Cross . She carried a box with a small kitten and a heavy baggage wagon rested next to her. Not far away her mother was talking animatedly to another witch and a wizard who also brought their children to the train.
The girl looked around the station. Businessmen in black suits and with briefcases passed by. Soon a strange family caught her attention.
"It's always the same with them", a woman, obviously the mother, blustered. At one hand she hold a little girl and at the other a little boy. Furthermore there was a man and two boys who had baggage wagons as well. All of them had red hair and freckles. The girl realized by the look of their clothing that it had to be a wizard family.
"Percy, Charlie: You go ahead!", the woman told her older sons.
"Of course, Mum!", the younger one made a important face. The other boy just laughed and pushed him forward:
"Hey, relax, man!" And so they ran away together with their luggage.
"Arthur!", the woman ordered, "you take Ron and look for them that way! Me and Ginny will go this way. Somewhere we'll find this rascals! When I lay my hands on them...!"
The man nodded his head and took the hand of the little boy:
"Calm down, Molly, we'll find Fred and George." However the woman didn't look like she would agree with her husband. Yet they started looking for their missing children.
Awhile the blond girl watched them until they disappeared completely. She gazed up to the huge station clock above her head. In a quarter of an hour the train would leave and her mother still gave no sign to pass the magical barrier. With a deep sigh she put down the box with Sir Lancelot, her kitten, and seated herself next to it on the cold ground.
When she' d gotten her letter some weeks ago, she'd been really happy about it. Finally she would learn how to perform magic just like her mother. She made herself the promise that she would do nothing else besides studying. She want her mother to be proud of her. Her dad, a wizard, eloped with a young nurse from the St. Mungos and never ever again messaged his daughter. The girl didn't know much about him. There was rumor that he was a follower of Lord Voldemort. Each time the girl cringed when she thought about being the daughter of a death eater and she hoped that it wasn't the truth.
She was too deep in thought as to notice the two figures that observed her for quiet a klong time now. When there all of a sudden was a loud bang and fizzling, she jumped and stumbled squeaking on her feed. All around her were sparks and bright flashing light. It was an exploding firework. The girl remarked that it was Dr. Filibusters Magical Fireworks*. A very meddlesome clacker bounced onto her hand and she cried because of the burning pain. Other people had stopped to watch the fireworks with open mouth.
"FRED AND GEORGE WEASLEY, WHAT DID YOU DO THIS TIME? ARE YOU CRAZY?", a voice jangled behind her. The woman from before rushed over. Her face was angry.
When she saw the crying girl, her look changed immediately.
"Are you alright, dear?", she asked concerned. The girl shook her head but was too shocked to say something. Now her own mother came running as well.
"Hope!", she shouted and pulled her daughter into her arms, "oh gosh Hope, are you hurt?"
Hope showed her burned hand and mother paled.
Quickly she dragged her daughter to the station's restrooms and put her aching hand under cold water. Hope whimpered as the cold water touched her burned skin.
"Unfortunately I can't heal your wound completely. There will still be a scar. In Hogwarts you should immediately go to the hospital wing", her mother advised and rewound a handkerchief around her hand. The girl just nodded her head. She was still shaking.
"Dr. Filibusters Fireworks should be abolished!", her mother blustered as they went back to the baggage wagon. The woman with the red hair was still there but not alone. In front of her were two boys who were like two peas in a pod and had the same red her like Molly.
"YOU MUST BE OUT OF YOUR MIND! JUST THE FIRST TIME ON YOUR WAY TO HOGWARTS AND ALREADY FOOLING AROUND! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW CARELES THIS HAD BEEN? THE GIRL IS INJURED BECAUSE OF YOUR IDIOCY! SHE'S STILL IN A SHOCK!" The woman didn't seem to be bothered by getting the attention of the whole platform.
"But mum...", one of the two boys started.
"We could impossibly know that she would be stupid enough to not run away but to linger in the middle of the fireworks!", the other one finished the sentence.
"AND NOW YOU TRY TO CONVINCE ME THAT ALL WAS HER OWN FAULT?", Molly glanced at her sons, "SERIOUSLY, IF I HERE ONCE THAT YOU CAUSE TROUBLE IN HOGWARTS, YOU'LL FASTER SIT IN A TRAIN BACK HOME THAN YOU CAN SAY HOGWARTS!"
The twins shared a sly grin and then said simultaneously: "Hogwarts!"
Molly indignantly gasped for air and gripped both of them on scruff of their neck:
"YOU'LL KINDLY APOLOGIZE TO THE GIRL, NOW. IS IT CLEAR TO YOU?"
"CLEARER THEN CLEAR!"
"CLEAR, CLEAR!"
Under the strict look of her mother the twins approached Hope and her mother.
"We want to say sorry..."
"Even if it's not our own free will but the one of our mother!"
"We hope..."
"...that you'll accept our apology!" First Hope looked at them dumbfounded but then she said:
"Okay! For now I'll accept!"
"Great, now we can walk to the platform", her mother took the luggage, "you're coming, Hope?"
The girl took one last look at the twins and hissed:
"I'm still not satisfied, so I'll get my revenge soon!" Then she followed after her mother.
"What the heck was that all about?", Fred asked and looked at his brother. George just shrugged his shoulders:
"I think we got our first enemy!"
End of Flashback
Hope examined the stigma on her left hand:
"I hate you Fred and George!"
Fred thought nearly the same about Hope when he read the paper which he pulled out the bowl in Poisons.
"Amourosis – most powerful love potion of all times", was written on it in Snape's scraggly handwriting.
End of Chapter Three
*Predecessor of "Dr. Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Firework" and still not sofully developed .