Author's Note: Okay so this chapter is all about Fred II. This chapter took me a really long time because I had trouble establishing Fred as his own character, someone other than just a reincarnation of his dad. I still don't know if I captured him exactly how I wanted to, but this is how it turned out! Let me know what you think/if you're enjoying the story overall so far!

Disclaimer: JKR owns Hogwarts and (most) of these characters, not me.

Fred Weasley's Big Plan

Or

Too Much Drama

Fred Arthur Weasley was having a rather interesting week.

It started with an insanely awesome prank (well, technically it was an idea for an insanely awesome prank, but we'll get into that in a minute) and it ended with his best mate snogging his cousin. Yes, quite an interesting week indeed.

Let's focus on the prank part for now.

So it all started a few weeks earlier when someone mentioned offhand to Fred that his sister was really slacking on the pranks this year. Fred's older sister, Roxanne, and his cousin James were currently Hogwarts' most notorious pranksters, and had been since their first year. And Fred, as the son of one of the most high-profile pranksters of all time (and named after one too) had always wanted to be known for his legendary pranks, like his father. Unfortunately for him, his sister was a year ahead of him and had basically cornered the market on pranks at the school by the time he arrived. There simply wasn't room for the two of them (or three, I suppose, if you include James).

Fred had always supported his sister and his cousin, as he was, quite honestly, a big fan of their work. He had a great respect for all makers-of-mayhem. Having grown up with all his dad's stories of his time at Hogwarts, how could he not be? No matter how much he hated to admit it, he really looked up to them.

So when someone brought up that his sister was slacking, Fred was all ready to defend her honor when he realized… that they were right.

When he thought about it, he realized that Roxy and James hadn't actually pulled a decent prank in weeks! Since practically the first week of school, and they were now over a month in.

So he asked Roxanne about it. And her eyes got all distracted and far away, and she brushed it off and said something about "too many detentions," and "a lot going on," and "suspicious professors." And then he asked her if she had any plans for any pranks coming up. And she said that she didn't.

Fred couldn't believe what he was hearing! Roxanne and James always had a plan! They were constantly devising ideas for their next prank, and the one after that, and the one after that. They were always tossing around ideas, some of which they even ran past Fred to see what he thought. Most of their ideas were dangerous or unrealistic, and never formed into actual plans, but some of them were quite brilliant.

So what did this mean that they didn't have anything lined up? Were Roxanne and James… giving up? They couldn't give up! They were… Roxanne and James. They were practically Hogwarts legends!

Fred had gotten so used to hearing about their pranks and asking about them and consulting on them and listening around the castle for word on what had gone down that week (as they were usually a week or so apart), that once he realized that they stopped, he felt almost like a piece of him had died.

It just wasn't Hogwarts for Fred without out-of-control bubbles in the bathrooms or firecrackers in the stairways or someone's toad getting turned into a balloon animal or their robes accidentally catching on fire. And he wouldn't stand for it.

Most of Fred's interactions with his cousin James happened at Quidditch practice. They had become pretty close last year, when Fred joined the team. Fred always looked forward to their time together, and with the rest of the team, but before the Quidditch tryouts this year James had seemed… distracted. Not like himself.

And then Fred saw an opportunity.

He decided if there ever was a perfect time to do it, it was now. He was going to steal from his cousin the Marauder's map- that fabled tool that made all (or at least, most) of Roxanne and James' pranking possible.

For years Roxy had tried to act like it wasn't real, like their dad had made it up, and like she and James didn't actually have it. But he knew the truth. He had seen them with it; they weren't fooling him.

For years he envied their use of the map. He wanted a chance at it, too! It didn't belong to him, but it didn't really belong to them either. Why shouldn't he get to use it like they did? It was only fair.

And so while James was distracted during the Quidditch tryouts, Fred slipped away, back to the locker rooms and into James' bag. It wasn't there, unfortunately, but he hadn't really expected it would be. And so made the decision to go check the next place it was most likely to be. He left the Quidditch pitch, right there in the middle of tryouts, because now that this idea was in his head, he knew he wasn't going to be able to shake it.

He ran back up to the castle, up to Gryffindor tower, and up to his cousin's room. He was hoping that James was the one holding on to the map right now, not Roxanne, because it was much easier for him to sneak up to James' room unnoticed than his sister's. Making sure no one was around, he entered the room and, upon searching, found the map almost immediately- stuffed under James' mattress.

He almost laughed out loud when he saw it lying there. Of course James would hide it somewhere so obvious! If James was anything, it certainly wasn't complex.

And so Fred took the map and hid it back in his room, returning to the Quidditch pitch a little over half an hour since he had left, without a soul noticing that he had gone.

Now, mind you, Fred didn't enjoy the idea of being a thief, and so he made plans in his mind to return the map to James... eventually. Because, even though he didn't want to keep it forever, he definitely wasn't planning on giving it back any time soon. And as long as James and Roxanne were distracted with whatever was going on with them (he suspected relationship troubles), they wouldn't be looking to get it back.

Fred didn't know if he should tell anyone about his new possession, but he decided that if he was really going to go through with this whole pranking business, he was going to need a partner in crime. Every notorious prankster had one. So he enlisted the help of his best mate, Toby Pritchett- only after he had sworn him to secrecy, of course.

Toby already knew about the map, seeing as he had heard Fred whine about it for years, but he never actually imagined he would get to use it. When Fred pulled him out of bed in the middle of the night to show him the map in all its glory, he was awestruck by the possibilities of what they could do with it.

"We could be, like-"

"The new top Hogwarts pranksters!" Fred blurted out, excited that he was finally going to get to do what he'd always wanted. "But first we need a plan."

"Right," Toby agreed immediately, before quickly realizing that he had no original ideas. "Maybe we could…" he trailed off, falling into silence.

But Fred was suddenly struck with a thought. It was also not very original, by any means, but he thought that it just might work for what they wanted to do. "We should set off fireworks during the Halloween Gala."

"What?!" Toby was not nearly as enthused by this idea as his friend seemed to be. It was far too risky. "But, mate, people's parents are going to be there. Your parents are going to be there! It's a huge event! It's way too dangerous."

The Halloween Gala was an annual event sponsored and created by Mr. Harry Potter to recognize the significance of the work done at Hogwarts, as well as the work of the Wizarding community in general. The gala was first created in the days after the Second Wizarding War in the effort to help rebuild the school after the famous Battle of Hogwarts, and every year since auctions were held to raise funds for the school, and various other Wizarding charities. The gala was well attended by practically every major figure in the Wizarding World. In Fred's eyes, it was the perfect stage.

"No, mate, you don't get it. It needs to be big. It needs to get people's attention. It needs to establish us."

"Establish us as what?!" Toby demanded, sure that his friend was losing his mind.

"As... you know, as the new kings of pranking!"

"You sound like an idiot. We could get expelled for something like that! It's insane, it's too much."

"No one will know it's us!" Fred asserted, but Toby only stared at him incredulously, not getting it. "We'll do it anonymously. And we'll use the safe, fireless fireworks from the joke shop. The one's that are all noise and light, nothing harmful."

"How will it establish us as the new 'prank kings,'" he put air quotes around the words, "as you say, if no one knows it's us?"

"A fair question," Fred paused for a moment to think. "Well, everyone's going to know that it wasn't James and Roxanne."

"How?"

"Because, like you said, it's too dangerous. Those two are up to their eyeballs in detentions; they're in detention till they graduate, practically! With something like this, they'd be expelled for sure, and they wouldn't risk that. But us, our records are clean, so we'd be fine! Everyone will suspect them, not us. And once they realize that they didn't do it, they won't know who to look to."

"But I still don't get it," Toby questioned, "How is this establishing us if no one knows it's us?"

"It won't be establishing us per se, it will just be establishing someone. A new person in power. Someone else to look to. We want to remain anonymous for as long as possible," Fred explained.

"We do?"

"Yes!" Fred exclaimed, exasperated. "The longer we remain anonymous the more pranks we can pull without getting in trouble. We don't want to be constantly in detention like James and Roxanne, and they've only gotten caught for about half the things they've actually done."

Toby was starting to get it now. "Okay, I see what you're saying. But why fireworks?"

"Because that's what my dad did," Fred had the answer immediately, "When he and his brother were about to leave Hogwarts in their seventh year, they set off fireworks all over the school." Fred had heard the story a hundred times. It was one of his dad's favorites.

"But don't we want to do something… original?"

Fred rolled his eyes. "It's an homage mate. Get with it."

Days passed and Toby and Fred got started on the planning for their prank-spectacular. They had a little less than a month before the Halloween Gala, and a whole lot of planning to do in that time. They had to figure out all the little details: how they would obtain the fireworks, where they would keep them, how they would go about setting them off without getting caught. Fred was slightly concerned about James and Roxanne getting blamed and getting in serious trouble, so he had to come up with a way to make sure they were both somewhere where they would have an alibi. As of yet, he hadn't quite figured out how to do it.

On Friday night, he and Toby took a break from scheming and went to a secret after-hours party they heard about, where things got a little out of hand. And by that, I mean that while Fred hadn't been paying attention, Toby had gotten smashed and started dancing with Rose, and the next thing Fred knew Norrie was hitting him on the shoulder and screaming, pointing towards the middle of the dance floor.

Fred couldn't believe his eyes. Toby… snogging Rosie? The idea of it repulsed him, but it was kind of like watching a bug die- it was gross, but he couldn't look away.

It was Rose who eventually broke it off, and she spun around and walked quickly away, heading towards the opposite end of the party. Toby stood there staring after her for a minute or two, and then he turned and shlumped back over to where Fred was standing with the rest of their friends.

Liam tried to congratulate him, Cara and Norrie immediately began badgering him for details- what made him do it, what it was like, why had Rose left- and Al looked about as grossed out as Fred felt, but otherwise stayed silent.

But then Toby looked to Fred with these big, sad eyes, and in that moment Fred couldn't say what he was really thinking, which was somewhere along the lines of "what the hell were you thinking, mate?" Instead, he wiped his face clear of any telling expression, and just patted his friend on the shoulder and acted like it didn't happen, because that seemed like the right thing to do.

"Do you think Rosie's okay? Should we try to find her?" Norrie asked, addressing all of them, but mostly Al, who was obvious choice, seeing how he was the least intoxicated, the most responsible, and also the closest to Rose.

He went off to search the party for her, and came back about ten minutes later, with still no Rose in sight. "She probably left," he shrugged. "She'll be fine, I doubt she'll even remember tonight. We can check on her when we get back to the common room." Toby looked like he was going to speak up about something, but then he seemed to think better of it.

Other than that, they didn't really talk about what happened for the rest of the night, though Norrie, Cara and Liam seemed to find something very amusing, as they kept whispering and giggling to each other (yes, Liam was giggling too).

Fred was pretty determined to NOT bring it up, but come the next morning, it seemed like he didn't have much of a choice. All their other roommates had left the room almost as soon as they woke up, and hadn't returned, leaving him alone with Toby. Fred sort of wished he could have followed them, but he made the choice to stay behind in solidarity with his friend.

Toby and Fred skipped breakfast and lunch together, because Toby was claiming to be "sick" after getting so drunk last night, though they both knew he just wanted to avoid seeing Rose. Fred had run down and grabbed them some food anyway, mostly because he was hungry, but also because he knew his friend was faking.

On his way down to the Great Hall he ran into Cara and Norrie near the entrance hall, just leaving lunch together. They both looked solemn, and for a minute Fred thought something might be wrong with Rose. As soon as he asked them, though, they laughed and Norrie said, "Oh, no, she's fine- just embarrassed."

Then Cara proceeded to explain their somber moods. "A couple of troll brains got busted in the corridors by Filch on the way back from the party. They blabbed about the whole thing, so it looks like security is going to be a lot tighter pretty soon."

"I heard he's doubling patrols," came a high voice that sent unpleasant shivers down Fred's spine. It belonged to Keira Connolly, the obnoxious friend of his cousin Molly, who'd shamelessly flirted with him for years, but who he'd never shown any real interest in. Something about the superior way she carried herself and her long, dark hair reminded him too much of his sister for him to see her in any sort of romantic light. She found him fascinating, he suspected, because he didn't submit to her every whim like most of the blokes in the school, who, whenever she wasn't bothering with Fred, Keira was busy hooking up with.

Fred still tried to be nice to her, because she never did anything wrong to him, per se, but he still didn't enjoy dealing with her, always throwing off her many advances. Norrie, however, was not so courteous. "And where'd you hear that?" she asked, barely trying to keep the iciness out of her voice. She and Cara, like most of the girls in the school, hated Keira. They were jealous of her, though they'd never admit it, and were annoyed that she always got all the blokes.

"Well, Molly was one of the people who got caught, so-" Of course she was, Fred heard himself and the other two thinking, as clearly as though they had said it aloud "-she told me all about how mad Filch was, and how he said he'd be doubling patrols."

"Well, he's always saying stuff like that, isn't he?" Fred said, hoping against hope that it wasn't true, for the sake of his upcoming prank more than anything else. Keira smiled at him sweetly- she was all perfectly straight teeth and sparkly eye makeup- and he felt his friends beside him glaring.

"She said he sounded really serious," she asserted, her flirty smile turning solemn. She looked around at the other two, and upon seeing their glares, decided that they must be mad at Molly. "It wasn't her fault, though, it was the blokes she was with!" Fred was only slightly tempted to ask which blokes; Molly's little escapades had long since ceased to be very interesting to him. "She swore to me that she didn't give anything away- not the location, not who was there- not anything."

Norrie and Cara's glares had turned into just slightly narrowed eyes, now, and Keira, reading their faces again, decided that that was good enough for her. She still didn't think their annoyance had anything to do with her, or perhaps she suspected but chose not to acknowledge it, keeping her tone casual and light.

"Anyway, I'll see you later Freddie!" She touched him lightly on the shoulder and beamed at him once more, before turning away, swishing her shiny dark hair behind her and calling out as she went, "Later, girls!" as if they were the best of friends. He hated when he called her Freddie- she was the only one who ever did, besides, of course, his older sister (again heightening the perplexing similarity he saw between them) when she was deliberately trying to bother him.

"Merlin, she's annoying," Cara said as soon as Keira had turned the corner and was out of earshot, and the other two nodded, before pushing her resolutely out of their heads. The subject of the tightened security seemed to have closed with Keira's departure, so the girls switched back to the other thing that they were still desperate to talk about.

"So, how's Toby? Is he… feeling okay?" Norrie asked, but her tone suggested that she was referring to more than just his physical health.

All morning Fred could see that Toby had been dying to talk about it as well, though Fred refused to be the first to bring it up. In fact, he was sick of the whole thing already (even though it had practically just happened), and so he snapped at her, "Why don't you ask him yourself?" before lumbering away moodily towards the Great Hall.

"Aww c'mon, Fred, come back!" Cara called after him, but he continued to walk resolutely in the other direction.

"Fine! We'll get it out of you eventually!" Norrie yelled, and then the two of them went in the other direction, headed back to the dormitory.

Once Fred returned to their room with food in hand, he found Toby pacing up and down in front of his bed, licking his lips over and over again. That was one of his ticks- one of the little things he did when he was frustrated or upset, and Fred recognized it immediately.

He handed over the lunch he had brought. Toby took it with a small, "thanks," and began wolfing it down immediately, eating rather quickly because of how hungry he was, and all the while continuing to pace. Fred ate his food a little more slowly, sitting on his bed, watching his friend. He was waiting for him to say whatever he was going to say, but eventually it became clear that he wasn't planning on speaking.

Fred finally caved and blurted out, "Don't worry about it, mate. It'll be fine, honest."

Toby looked surprised that Fred had said anything, really, after all the silence. Then he proceeded to ask, "What are you talking about?" with an expression of fake confusion. He was pretending like he didn't know what Fred was referring to, and like it wasn't plainly clear what he was so upset about.

Fred sighed, annoyed that Toby was going to make him explicitly say it. "About you… and Rosie…"

"And who said I was worried?" Toby demanded. Fred rolled his eyes.

"Mate, seriously? It's obviously bothering you. But, like I said, it'll be fine."

Toby stopped for a moment, internally debating whether or not he should continue to fake like he wasn't worried. "And how do you know that?" he eventually asked, throwing his hands up in the air in frustration.

"Because you two are mates. Doubtful she even remembers, really." Fred wasn't sure if he actually believed this, or if saying so was even helpful, but he was just trying to make his friend feel better. "I'm sure we'll all laugh about it at dinner later."

"I don't want anyone to laugh about it! I feel bad enough as is!" he said, sitting down on the floor in a huff.

"Calm down, mate! Nobody cares, honestly. It's not that big of a deal. Even Rose- I'm sure she'll be cool about it. You know how she is. She'd never make fun of you, if that's what you're worried about."

"That's not what I'm worried about," Toby muttered, not looking at his friend, but instead focusing very hard on a particularly non-interesting spot of the carpet.

"Then what? You're worried she got the wrong idea? That she's going to want to go out with you now or something?" Toby didn't respond, so Fred continued, "Because I kind of doubt it, mate."

At this, Toby looked up at him from the floor, a slightly hurt expression on his face. "Not that you're not- not... you know!" Fred stammered, trying to save himself. "It's just that… she's Rosie. And you're you. And you know how she is..." Fred was aware that he had already said this, and still wasn't entirely sure what he meant by it, but he was hoping that Toby would find some sort of meaning.

Toby just sighed. "Yeah…" There was another drawn-out pause. "You really think she'd never see me like that?"

And suddenly it struck Fred- why his best mate was acting so weird, and why he was making it seem like this was such a big thing. "Wait… you don't want her to see you like that, do you?"

Toby didn't respond and refused to look at him, but instead he put his head in his hands and shook it back and forth. His silence was confirmation enough. "Because, like… it's Rosie, mate," Fred continued, saying this almost like it was a question.

"Yeah I know!" Toby replied, his head shooting up out of his hands. "It's Rosie! You're right, of course you're right. It would never happen." He continued to shake his head furiously, as if to dislodge whatever he was thinking. "I'm not stupid, I just…"

"You fancy her?" Fred finished for him, trying to be helpful. Toby glared.

"I don't-" he began loudly, before quickly lowering his voice, "I don't fancy her."

"Okay, then you…?" Fred waited for an explanation.

"I just… I don't know, mate!" He seemed to be struggling with how to articulate it. "I mean, she's really pretty. She always has been, everyone knows that. And then there's how smart she is, and she's fun on top of that. But, I mean… we're friends. Just friends."

Fred watched his friend sadly. He hated to see him like this, all torn up and confused, but he wasn't sure what he could do to help. Encourage him? Discourage him? Let him figure out on his own? None of the options were great, but he decided to go with talking him out of it, because the idea of his best mate and his cousin just didn't sit right in his stomach. Not to mention that a relationship within their friend group could throw off the entire dynamic.

"She's not all that, mate. You know she has her flaws. She's hardly ever around, she's so focused on school. And she can be well annoying at times, we both know."

"You're right. You're right. I know I'm being stupid."

"Besides, she's so into that Malfoy bloke, I doubt she'd go for anyone else." Fred added, causing Toby to stare at him strangely.

"What do you mean, 'into Malfoy'?"

Now it was Fred's turn to be confused. "I mean, c'mon mate! She's constantly on about him, she must be in love with him or something. It's the only explanation." Fred could tell almost instantly that he'd said the wrong thing for this situation.

"She hates him, that's why she talks about him all the time!"

"Yeah, that's what she wants everyone to think. That's what she tries to convince herself, I'm sure."

"How could you think that?!" Toby was raising his voice again, and Fred was still confused. He thought everyone thought that about Rose and Malfoy. Well, everyone except Cara, who was clearly in denial.

"Why are you getting all worked up, mate? It's just a theory. I'm not the only one who thinks so."

"I'm not…" Toby was struggling again to express himself, that much was clear. "I'm not worked up I just… I mean, Malfoy is 'Mr. Perfect.' He's got all that stuff Cara's always going on about- the hair and the Quidditch talent and the brains and whatever the hell. Practically every girl in the castle is in love with him! I just-" he lowered his voice again, aware that he was letting himself get too loud, "-I just think Rosie would know better than to fall for a bloke like that. That she would rate herself a little higher, that's all."

"But if he's Mr. Perfect... Isn't she rating herself pretty highly by… by picking him?" Fred puzzled.

"But he's fake!" Toby asserted. "That's just it, he's so fake. He's in Slytherin, I mean, just look at his parents! He's got to be evil underneath all that."

"Hey!" Fred interjected, "You know not all Slytherins are evil- they just get a bad rap. I can't believe you'd even say that." Fred had been taught all his life by his family that he should be tolerant: never ever label people or think he's superior to them, just because they come from a different background. And even though his dad, and he himself, admittedly, loved a good joke around about the Slytherins, he also knew that it wasn't cool to just call them all evil.

"You know I didn't mean it like that, I just meant… I don't know." But they both knew that he really had meant it like that, secretly.

Fred paused, unsure where to go from here without hurting his friend's feelings.

"Maybe Malfoy's evil, maybe he's not. Truth is you don't really know him." Toby nodded, and Fred felt like, for once, he had said the right thing. But then he knew that what he was going to say next would ruin it. Unfortunately, the words were already coming out and before he could stop himself, and he added, "Maybe you're just jealous."

He didn't know why he said it- maybe chalk it up to his confrontational nature. He immediately saw something flare in his friend's eyes, and was sure for a second that he was about to get up and punch him, but instead Toby just sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I am."

And that was the end of that conversation. They sat there for a while in silence, until eventually, when Fred was sure that neither of them was going to speak, he left Toby alone in the room to brood, while he went down to the common room to work on some homework.

Later that night when dinner rolled around, Fred wasn't even sure if Toby was gonna show. Rose was there- she had emerged from her dormitory looking terribly tired and fidgety, like she had barely slept- and the group walked down together without Toby. Once they were in the Great Hall, however (about 15 minutes after they sat down), he arrived, trying to act casual but with an air of uncomfortableness around him.

They ate and talked about little nothings, Toby refusing to look at Rose and Rose not seeming to mind at all; she seemed lost in thought about something, though this was fairly typical Rose-like behavior.

Once they finished dinner and desert and began making their way back up to Gryffindor tower again, however, Rose walked casually up to Toby and asked to speak with him. It was very offhand, the way she said it, but the entire group turned to stare unabashedly at her words, waiting for Toby's reaction. The two of them ignored their friends, however, and Toby allowed himself to be led off down a deserted corridor.

"Reckon they're heading off to snog some more?" Liam asked, causing the girls to laugh and Albus to shove him into a wall.

"Shut up, no they're not!" Al protested, and Toby agreed with him. He just wanted this whole thing to blow over so he could get back to focusing on The Prank (as he had taken to referring to it in his head). They had lost a whole day of planning because Toby had been sulking!

Once they returned to the common room, Rose and Toby came in through the portrait hole about 10 minutes later, both of them seeming fine and acting perfectly normal (though Fred remained unconvinced). Shortly later, Rose announced that she was off to the library to do some research before curfew, and Al got up and went with her.

As soon as they were gone, Fred turned immediately to Toby, as did the other three. "Well…?" he inquired.

Toby sighed dramatically. "She only said that she was sorry and that she was really drunk and she was embarrassed by the whole thing."

"Ooh, harsh, mate," Liam said, clapping him on the shoulder, and Toby scowled at him.

"Not like that, it wasn't because of me!" he defended. "It's just because she knows we're friends and we both agreed that's the way its supposed to be. It was a mistake, that's all. But we're good now." He didn't look at Fred as he said any of this, so Fred was left to wonder if he was really telling the truth, or if he was going to hear the real story later. He hoped it was the former.

"Well, I, personally, am glad that's over with," Norrie proclaimed. "Who needs all that drama?" They all stared at her skeptically; they knew she loved drama.

"Yeah, right, Nor," Liam said, and they all laughed at the look of indignation on her face.

Later, after the boys headed up to bed, Fred asked Toby if he was actually fine with the whole thing, or if he was just putting on a brave face.

"No, mate, really. I was just being stupid earlier," he assured him, but Fred still wasn't sure if he was buying it. Then Toby added nonchalantly, "She said she was 'working through some things right now.' I reckon she means Malfoy, don't you?" His tone didn't give anything away, but based on their conversation earlier, Fred was pretty sure he was just acting like it didn't matter.

Determined, however, to get back to work on The Prank, he pushed his apprehension aside, and decided to follow his friend's nonchalant example. "Yeah, mate, I reckon it does," he agreed, and that was the end of that.

For now, at least, he told himself, I'll leave it alone, though quite truthfully he was very determined to never bring up the subject again, if he could help it.

They had far more important things to worry about, anyway. Like how in the hell were they going to pull off this prank so that the execution was flawless and it was to the scale that he envisioned?

But that was a question for another day.

A.N.: So this chapter wasn't as long as the last one, but I feel like from now on the chapters will start to get shorter as I start to build up the backstory and surrounding characters. My plan is that pretty soon a lot of the storylines are going to converge instead of just doing their own thing (cough, cough, hint, hint, it may have something to do with the Halloween Gala) so I'll probably start having chapters devoted to multiple storylines, instead of just one. The next chapter will be about Louis Weasley, who was only very briefly introduced in the earlier chapters, and who doesn't have much to do with the overall story arch, but who I thought had potential to be an interesting character worth further exploring. Please please review if you liked it, let me know what you think about the converging storylines idea, and, as always, read on!