Chapter 2: Hogwarts Express

By ttdbzgumball

'Brilliant,' said Fred, after winning his 4th game of Exploding Snap. 'so what do we do now?'

Percy suddenly poked his head through the door.

'Oh, so there you are,' he said haughtily. 'I was wondering where you were—not that I care, of course. Father told me to keep an eye on you.'

'Hey, Percy,' said George, offering him the cards. 'Want to play?'

Percy sniffed at the air disdainfully. 'Why, no thank you. I have more…important things to do, rather than having cards explode in my face.'

'Not much of a prankster, is he?' Lee muttered to George.

Before Percy could retort with a snide remark, a very pretty 3rd year girl walked past their compartment.

'Hey, Perce,' she said and smiled at Percy as she walked past.

Percy went very red. 'Hello, Penelope,' he stuttered in a slightly higher voice than normal, causing both Fred and George to break out into huge grins.

'Hi Penelope!' cried George while Fred waved excitedly, and she turned and smiled at them.

'Why, you…' blustered an extremely embarrassed and annoyed Percy, now turning an even darker shade of red that reminded Fred and George of one of their old confection creations that had exploded almost as soon as they had finished making it. 'Penelope is very busy, so don't annoy her, or for that matter don't annoy my friends, yes she is just a friend nothing more honestly it's high time you two grew up you are now Hogwarts students although there's a high chance the Sorting Hat will absolutely refuse to sort you two or else explode Sorting you now if you'll excuse me I'll go sit with people whose company I actually enjoy.'

He stormed off down the corridor, which might have been more impressive if Fred hadn't called out, 'Wait, what? There are gnomes on the train?'

Lee came back from the toilet. 'What'd I miss?'

'Oh, nothing,' said George. 'Just a minor nuisance by the name of Percy Weasley and his crush on a certain Penelope. Anyways, I'm hungry. Anyone have something to eat?'

Right on cue, the trolley lady passed by and asked them if they would like anything to eat. Fred and George happily obliged, except that they did not have enough money to buy everything they wanted to eat. Lee, however, pitched in with more than enough money, and they ate their sweets happily.

The hours passed by in a flash. Fred, George and Lee discussed various topics such as Quidditch and exchanged stories and there was much laughter. Bill visited twice: once to say hello, the second time to remind them to behave and keep the noise level to a minimum.

'—and after that one incident, Dad wouldn't touch a fencepost for weeks,' sniggered George, amidst lots of laughter from Lee. 'After our trick, he thought Muggle fences were designed to explode on intruders…'

'But to be fair, we were just testing out one of our first cloaking potion prototypes, we didn't mean for Dad to actually touch it…'

'But his reaction was priceless, and it was definitely worth it, although we were grounded until Christmas…'

'Yeah, speaking of which,' Fred added darkly, 'do you think Mum'll actually give our room a full clean-up like she said she would?'

'Given what your Mum seems like from your stories, I think she'll definitely follow up on her promise,' said Lee. 'I reckon you'll be lucky if you're allowed home at Christmas.'

'Yeah. In fact,' grinned George in spite of himself, 'if she checks under our bed, I don't think we'll be allowed home at all.'

'Hey,' said Lee, looking outside the window, 'it's getting dark. And look, people are starting to change.'

The three of them pulled out their robes from their trunks and began to get dressed. Fred stared at his hand-me-down trousers, which were obviously a few centimetres too long for him.

'Wow. Bill really was tall when he was our age,' he muttered as he stuck his feet out and barely managed to walk a few steps before tripping over his robes.

'At least you don't have to worry about Charlie being fat,' groused George as he searched though his trunk for a belt.

'Speak for yourself. Look at me!' came Lee's strangely muffled voice from behind them. The twins turned around to look at him. Lee's robes were at least half a foot away from his body, and his sleeves dangled down to his shoes—actually, his shoes were nowhere to be seen under trousers that made it impossible for him to walk: they drooped down to the floor.

Lee shrugged, nonchalant as ever. 'Dad said I'd grow into them.'

Together, they managed to roll up their trousers and sleeves until it was manageable, although barely, as they (especially Lee) still looked completely ridiculous.

The last rays of sun had already left the sky by the time they finally arrived. Fred, George and Lee piled out of the Hogwarts Express and onto the platform with the other students, leaving their bags on the train as Bill had instructed them to.

'What d'ya reckon's gonna happen now?' whispered Lee to the twins, looking around in bewilderment just like all the other first years. The older students walked towards several black horseless carriages. Some of the first years, seeing no other option, followed them a few steps before hesitating and going back to where the other first year stood.

'How'd the carriages move?' whispered Fred.

'Magic, I reckon,' answered George.

'No, you idiots!' said Lee. 'Can't you see? There are horses…black horses, they look like…skeletons?'

Their conversation was interrupted by huge, thundering footsteps. By now, most the older students had left and there were little to no more carriages. The lanterns revealed the origin of the footsteps: a huge man, twice the size of any average human. He had a huge, bushy beard and kind eyes that told the first years that though he may look intimidating, he could be trusted-maybe.

'Hey, at least we don't have his hand-me-downs,' whispered an awestruck Fred to an equally wide-eyed George.

'Firs' years over here! Follow me!' he bellowed for the world to hear. 'I'm Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds here at Hogwarts. Follow me down ter the lake. Mind yer step!'

The first years gave a sigh of relief—turned out the half-giant wouldn't eat them after all. They obligingly followed Hagrid down a steep, narrow, pitch-black path and it was so dark they could barely see in front of them—they relied on Hagrid's lantern and his booming voice. The narrow path suddenly opened up onto the edge of a huge lake. The twins could have sworn they saw a ripple, something move deep in the lake's watery depths. Across the lake on the other side, a gigantic castle stood on a cliff.

'Wicked,' whispered Fred and George in unison.

'No more'n four to a boat!' boomed Hagrid, pointing with his giant hand to a series of small boats docked by the edge of the lake. The group of first years eagerly clambered onto the boats. Fred, George and Lee got onto a boat with a girl. They searched for the oars and were about to inform Hagrid that they didn't have any, when the boats all simultaneously and abruptly jerked forward, gliding smoothly on the water.

The girl spoke. 'Hi, I'm Angelina Johnson.'

'Cool—I'm Fred Weasley and this is my significantly less attractive brother George,' grinned Fred. 'And that's Lee.'

'Nice to meet you-' said George, only to be cut off by the boat suddenly violently rocking.

'What the bloody heck was that?' exclaimed Lee.

'That would be—that,' pointed Angelina, to a giant tentacle sticking out of the water. It was waving at them.

'Wicked—that must the giant squid Bill mentioned,' gaped George. 'I wonder…'

The other students gaped at the squid. 'Is that thing dangerous?!' panicked a boy on one of the other boats.

'Nope—the squid's perfectly harmless,' said Hagrid. 'Aren't yeh, Bubbles?' He smiled at the giant squid and the squid raised a tentacle to him, nearly toppling over the boat he was in and spraying water all over the other boats in the process.

'I have some questions for that Hagrid bloke,' muttered Lee, soaking wet from the giant squid as they scrambled out of the boat after it docked in some kind of underground tunnel that seemed to be right underneath the castle. 'First, who names a giant squid Bubbles?! Only a person like Hagrid, that's who. Second, who puts a giant squid in the lake?!'

'I heard the headmaster, Dumbledore, is a bit off the rocker, so that would explain a lot,' came a voice from the back of the crowd of first years.

'Oh, it's Cedric!' exclaimed George. The Diggorys were next-door neighbours to the Weasleys-Cedric Diggory was older than them, but was also starting at Hogwarts this year.

'Heya Cedric, how ya doing?' said George good-naturedly to the dark-haired boy.

'Very well, thank you,' replied Cedric politely. 'Oh look—we're approaching the castle,' he said, pointing to the looming oak front door.

Fred turned to George. 'Ready for the adventure of a lifetime?'

'You bet,' George grinned back.

They approached the door. Hagrid raised a fist and knocked on it three times.

Hey guys! Ttdbzgumball here! So sorry it took sooooo long to update Chapter 2, but well here it is! Hope you enjoyed it! Also, please follow, favourite and review if you liked the story-it would make my day! Shoutout to my friend Shadow of the Blue Moon for sending me loads of really useful Fred and George posts and tidbits. Those helped a lot. Thank you so much! Be sure to check out her amazing Harry Potter fanfictions as well! As you can see, I copied the last sentence a bit off Philosopher's Stone, as a nice callback to the series. Stay put for chapter 3! Love you all!

EDIT 21/8: WOOOO I'm back from 2 weeks vacation and I have Internet again! Sorry I haven't been updating in a while; like I said, I was off on trip without Internet, and I didn't have time anyways. But now I'm back and I can keep writing!

When I was away, I GOT MY VERY FIRST REVIEW GASP from elephantlover123! The review was very honest, which I really appreciated. I would like to address one of the key points in the review, concerning the fanfiction Surviving the Weasley Twins by phantomduck. it is a truly awesome piece of fanfiction (one of my favourites) also based on this story's basic premise: the Hogwarts years of Fred and George. I must admit that I have slightly based off and even copied at some parts the story, and I am really and truly story to anyone I have offended by this, and I promise I will try to make my ideas more original (although you may see some very similar plot lines in the near future). Thank you elephantlover123! (btw elephants are one of my favourite animals and that actually gave me an idea for the story so double thanks!)

I already shouted out to my friend Shadow of the Blue Moon (go check her out) and now I shoutout to my friends InfiniteWings who very recently created a Fanfiction account and has a Quora account (she loves Evangelion the anime) and Zita the Fandom Penguin who only has a Quora account (as you can imagine, she is in almost every single fandom possible, which is why she's awesome). So now I bid you all adieu for now, and stay tuned for Chapter 3! Byeeeeeeeee!

EDIT 28/9 I am SOOOO sorry it's taking so long to update! School has started and I'm burdened with tests and homework. However, expect the next chapter by the end of the month, which is in 2 days, so stay tuned! By the way, I may change the first two chapters a bit drastically, so to avoid comparison to Surviving the Weasley Twins (READ IT). Also, a Hamilton/Hogwarts fanfic is coming along the way (expect Chapter 1 by the end of the year) and there MAY be a slight crossover with Les Mis! BE PREPAREDDDD See ya in a few days!

-Ttdbzgumball