Chapter Five: That Morning
"No!" Nathaniel shouted, "I wanna stay in bed!"
"Today is the the first day of classes!" An older student with a big "P" badge told him.
I don't care, I'm TIRED!" The stubborn twin insisted.
"You would be less tired if you hadn't spent the entire night reading." The boy who slept to his left said, "And shushing the portraits."
At that moment, another surge of portraits rose, demanding to be released.
"The house elves will take care of that." The badged boy told him.
"House elves?" Nathaniel asked, "You mean the little Gollums in this book?"
He held out a book and flipped through it, looking for a picture for reference.
Now that his hands were off his bed, the boy flicked his wand and Nathaniel rose from the bed and fell onto the floor in a pile of limbs, book, and blanket.
"Alright, alright!" He acquiesced, "Gimme a second!"
Fourteen seconds later, he was up and ready to go.
"Where's the breakfast place?" He asked when they exited the dormitory and started walking through the halls.
"The Great Hall." Someone corrected him.
"I wasn't asking you." Nathaniel said, pointing at the picture he held under his arm.
The portrait, a guy wearing a frilly wig sitting at a table with food on it, demanded to be put back on the wall.
"You'll go back when you start answering my questions!" He replied. Then he tossed the picture back into the dormitory behind him.
"Alright, let's go." He said cheerfully.
The prefect cringed at the bang of the picture frame hitting the ground and led the students up to the Great Hall. Along the way, a few Slytherin students including Michael filtered into the group.
"Why do you have a bunch of welts?" Nathaniel asked him.
Michael whispered the events of what happened and explained that he had a plan to get revenge.
"What do you think is the most heavily protected place in Hogwarts?" He asked.
Nathaniel took a moment to think, "The Boss's lair or treasure room for sure."
Nathaniel then turned to the prefect and asked, "Does Hogwarts have a treasure room by any chance?"
The prefect frowned, "Not that I know of." He said suspicion evident on his face.
"Okay, how do I set up a meeting with Dumbledore?" Michael asked.
The prefect corrected him, "That's Headmaster Dumbledore, and anyone can arrange an appointment by asking their head of house or Professor McGonagall."
"Who's professor McGonagall again?" Nathaniel asked, "I forgot what she looks like."
Michael, seeing that they arrived, pulled Nathaniel through the doors of the Great Hall before the prefect could answer. Nathaniel stopped resisting and let Michael take them to the kind-of-old lady to Dumbledore's right and asked her.
"Can we have an appointment with the headmaster about two days from now at night?"
McGonagall opened her mouth to respond with what was clearly going to be a negative answer when Dumbledore, who was a foot to her left answered for her.
"Of course." He replied, "I am always open to students with questions at any time. In fact, just for the next three days, I will have my password changed to Sugar Mice."
"I thought it was really funny when you said, a few words last night." Nathaniel added.
Michael nodded in agreement, and Dumbledore's eyes began to twinkle.
"He's like Santa Claus but not fat." Nathaniel whispered to his twin.
The duo grinned broadly.
"Can we also have turkey that night?" Michael added as they left, "I just love turkey and I BET everybody else will love it too!"
Dumbledore gave him a gentle smile as the brothers accidentally walked to the wrong table and ended up eating breakfast with the Ravenclaws.
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Professors Sprout and Snape had trouble delivering all of the first-year student schedules, but the issue was resolved rather quickly when Tessa pointed out to her Head of House where the twins were eating.
Michael was dragged over to his table while Nathaniel was shoved by Tessa. He was very adamant about finishing his food, so he was forced to take it with him.
"See you later!" The twins called to each other.
Michael exited his line of sight and Nathaniel looked over his schedule. His first class was to be Herbology. He learned from the books that that meant plants.
Michael was clearly planning something, but he wasn't going to let that bother him.
The way to Herbology was easy to remember, it was just outside the castle and in one of the many giant glass buildings. The Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs apparently took the class together and he hoped he would end up doing one with Michael too. He spent that class digging and being yelled at.
At least he learned a few things, like not to eat Asphodel, or was it Wormwood?
He shrugged, it doesn't matter, he thought, they're probably the same thing.
During class he had taken out his wand several times to fiddle with it and at one point, a plant broke out of a nearby greenhouse to attack them, only to be rebuked by himself, a few Gryffindors, and their teacher.
"I swear!" He insisted (lied) afterwards, "I did NOT know that's what Incendio does!"
He didn't know why he got points for that, but he figured it all worked out by itself.
His fellow year Hufflepuffs, at least the ones that heard the rumors, nodded along with whatever he said.
That day was rather fun, even the homework wasn't TOO boring! He just wished he could hang out with Michael while doing it.
His thoughts were interrupted by a prefect speaking to him and his year mates in the common room.
"Normally, we use wands for everything," The boy stated, "But now there's an optional class for all ages of students. A sword fighting class!"
He handed out slips of parchment to each student, "Here are the times and places for each class, if you need any help finding it, just ask one of your prefects."
Nathaniel nodded with the rest of his housemates. He folded the parchment up and slipped it into one of his pockets.
"What's our next class?" He asked the prefect.
The boy frowned, "You have a class schedule, just check."
"You said if we had any questions to ask them!" Nathaniel replied.
After some pressure from the prefect, Nathaniel admitted that he had turned it into an origami Yoda and wouldn't unfold it for any reason, the smiley face was already on it. No going back.
His prefect sighed and told them their next class was potions and that he had a class of his own to get to so find it on your own.
That hadn't been easy. They knew from asking other students, that the potions classroom was in the dungeons with their dormitory, so it was close by.
However, the dungeons were like a maze. One of those stupid easy mazes that you for some reason just couldn't solve.
Eventually, through sheer determination, they stumbled upon the potions class five minutes early and took their seats.
Nathaniel sat next to the only person he knew, Tessa, and hoped that they would be making healing potions or potions of strength or swiftness, like in Minecraft.
The potions professor was already sitting at his desk.
Nathaniel waved at him despite being less than twenty feet away. He was ignored. There were a few Ravenclaw already there but not the entire first year, the rest trickled into the classroom later but before potions actually started.
Nathaniel gave the mean girl from Ravenclaw, Chi or something he thought, a glare that looked more like he was constipated than anything else. She looked intimidated either way.
At least, he hoped so.
"Take your seats, those who have not already been seated." Professor Snape announced, standing from his desk.
The pale skinned, greasy haired, hook-nosed man walked around the front of the room.
Nathaniel hooted loudly, and punched his forehead, chin, and stomach in quick succession, it was clear to anyone who knew him, which wasn't anyone here, that he was trying hard to get the ticcing over with quickly.
"Two points from Hufflepuff." Professor Snape said.
"I'm sorry!" Nathaniel cringed, "I have Tourette's Syndrome, it means I make noises and movements that I can't control!"
"Are you barmy?" A student to his left asked.
"No, I'm Nathaniel." Nathaniel said, "But I understand the confusion."
Slightly louder he added, "I'm Nathaniel! Just so you all know!"
Professor Snape glared at the twin until he sunk into his seat quietly, knocking his knees together.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making." He continued, voice barely above a whisper, "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I do not expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death, if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
Nathaniel managed to hold back his tics until after Snape's introduction. A few students, purebloods and halfbloods, whispered to each other about the curse of Tourette's. The dark Hufflepuff was cursed!
"Open your books to page twelve. And begin the potion."
The class went on with the only interruptions being Snape's critiquing and point taking from Nathaniel as his tics slowly destroyed any chance he had at this class.
By the end of it, nearly thirty points had been removed from Hufflepuff and three cauldrons were destroyed.
Luckily, nobody had been hurt. In a way that Madame Pomfrey couldn't fix.
Michael wasn't doing much better.
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Transfiguration had been a mess. Not only had Michael accidentally, magically flung a needle into another student's arm, the moment he had seen the cat on the desk he ran forward and started petting it.
Needless to say, it was rather awkward when she changed form.
Not for Michael, he was excited to learn how to do it too, but the reaction by the other Slytherin told him he had just screwed up, badly.
Turning needles into matchsticks was harder than it looked. By the end, he got the material right, but couldn't reshape it at all.
McGonagall looked disappointed, as if she had been expecting more from the "cleverest" house.
Anthony Anthony was the only other child to get as far as Michael did, although rather than get the material, he had a wooden needle instead.
At the end of class, Professor McGonagall set about fixing all of the student's matchsticks.
"Reparifarge." She said each time.
Each time, Michael giggled a little more. Some people with Tourette's syndrome had trigger words and his brother had one very similar to "reparifarge". That was going to be hilarious, Michael couldn't wait to hear what happened.
His next class was Charms. He waved at the little goblin man, who happily waved back, when he entered and sat down with his group, opposite of the Gryffindor class. After taking roll call, Professor Flitwick started.
"Today class, we will be learning Lumos." He said, "Can anybody tell me what Lumos creates?"
Several students raised their hands, and he called on a Gryffindor named Cormac.
"Light." He said confidently.
"That is correct!" Professor Flitwick grinned, "That's one point to Gryffindor!"
That was very easy, thought Michael.
"Now the most efficient wand movement is a quick jerk up and another one back down, forming an upside-down V. Everyone, practice this movement!"
Then, Flitwick made the movement, said the word, and a brilliant dot of light appeared at the end of his wand.
Michael found himself quickly bored of practicing wand movement and decided to just try it out.
"Lumos." He muttered, expecting to see a bright light at the end of his wand.
When nothing happened, he frowned and concentrated a tad more. After another failure he looked back to the book and remembered the state of mind one had to use to cast different spells.
Quickly putting himself in the mindset of needing light, he cast the spell successfully.
"Well done, Mister Henderson!" Professor Flitwick said proudly, "You may all now look to your books and practice the spell! And that's five points to Slytherin!"
Michael nodded absently and began trying different movements with the same spell. None succeeded but he felt like he was getting somewhere and started practicing with changing the brightness of the spell.
He earned another ten points by the end of the class.
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They met at lunch and ran to hug each other when they made eye contact.
"We need to bring the red-haired twins into our group." Michael whispered to Nathaniel when they embraced.
Nathaniel nodded and went back to his table where he told Tessa that he was going to sit with Alex this time. She was fine with it.
"Go on," she shooed him, "I have other friends too."
Taking the cue to leave, Nathaniel sat next to Alex, causing most of the Gryffindors next to him to flinch back and flee the immediate area.
The Weasley twins snorted in amusement. They were responsible for a good number of people fleeing an area, but never through reputation alone.
"Fellow twins," Michael said, having walked up behind them.
"We have an idea, and we would like you to join us." Nathaniel added.
"It involves pranking a large number of irritating Slytherins." Michael continued.
"Y'all interested?" Nathaniel finished.
The twins looked at each other then back at the Hendersons.
"Yes." They said.
"I'm Fred." One spoke up.
"And I'm George." The other added.
"We've never had an ally with such access to Slytherin house before."
"But if your brother is in Hufflepuff…"
"We think you can be trusted!" They finished in unison.
"Perfect!" Michael proclaimed, clasping his hands together.
"I'm Michael, and he's Nathaniel." Nathaniel told them.
"Nice try!" George said with a chuckle, "We know that Michael is the Slytherin."
"And we know you haven't had time to switch yet." Fred finished.
"Yeah, we'll you're Fred." Nathaniel said, pointing at the one who introduced himself as George.
"And you're George." Michael said, pointing at the other.
"I think this will work out!" George said enthusiastically.
"This must be the start of a beautiful relationship!" Fred agreed.
"I'm so confused." Alex said, "But I wouldn't change that for a million pounds."
Both sets of twins jumped, startled, having forgotten that he was there at all.
"Can he join us?" Nathaniel asked the group.
"Well, he did play along with pretending to be your twin." George mused.
"Which makes him an honorary twin." Michael insisted.
"Alright," Fred agreed looking at George, "He can join us."
"Welcome honorary twin." George said.
"But the most secretive secrets must only be shared among us four." Fred said.
"That is acceptable." The Henderson twins told him.
"So, it goes like this." Michael said, "I'm going to need a distraction that will have any prefects and teachers away from the Slytherin common room."
"He wants to sneak me in to help him with the prank." Nathaniel explained.
"And that's it." Michael clapped his hands, "We'll need it after curfew tomorrow night but not too late that we'll miss our appointment with Dumbledore."
"We can do that." Fred nodded.
Then they ate. It was good.
.
.
.
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Author's Note:
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