2021 A/N: A completely new, never seen before, chapter! You're welcome 😊

2021 A/N 2: This chapter is shorter than what I typically write for this story, but I wanted to include a little Aileen/Sirius and Aileen/twins interaction before I wrote and posted the first task. So, I hope you enjoy. I've discovered that I really struggle writing the twins, almost as much as I struggle writing Severus and Luna, so I'd like to apologise for that, but I have done my best. I'll try and include a little more twin interaction as this story continues, instead of just the references I'd typically been writing before now.

Chapter 49: Year Four: The Twins and Politics Settle (mostly)

"I hate politics." Sirius grumbled, shooting a cutting curse at Aileen, who simple leaned slightly to the side so that it past her by while she returned fire.

"But you're so good at playing the old fools." Aileen laughed. Sirius had come straight from a meeting with the Wizagnmont, where they had been discussing the procuring of the identified mer-sculptures, to her weekly duelling practise which he was presently using to de-stress.

"Not as good as you. You can use words in a way which makes people want to listen to you." Sirius grumbled, suddenly diving to avoid the ice spell Aileen had shot at him. He'd learnt the hard way that his shields weren't good enough to hold against any of her water-based spells, unless he put more power than he could really afford to waste behind them.

"Practise makes perfect. Spend enough time around me, you might just pick some things up. Or you know, you can paraphrase me." Aileen suggested, summoning the desk from behind Sirius which knocked him over. Using the opening, she disarmed and bound him.

"Uh, I think I'm going to have to restrict your spell usage and lift the restriction on my own." Sirius groaned.

"I'm already restricted to sixth year spells." Aileen grumbled, releasing her godfather. They'd started with a fourth-year spell limit, but as Sirius got better with his power and control, they'd increased both of their limits until Sirius was using seventh year spells and she was using sixth (she was still trying to learn and master seventh year spells).

"Yes, but I'm going to need my hit-wizard training in full to stand a chance against you. Your battle experience is far superior to mine – and I fought a war!" Sirius looked outraged at this fact.

"You only fought in the war for four years, and you spent two of those years as a trainee and therefore kept away from the large-scale fights. I've been fighting monsters consistently for the last seven years, receiving training in combat for the last three, with a higher level in the last year alone. It may not have been in magic, but combat is the same and easily transferred." Aileen explained. "My experience may not be in magical duelling, but that doesn't mean anything."

"Still," Sirius sighed. "It smarts the pride."

"Increase your spell reparatory. I'll stick with sixth year spells." Aileen rolled her eyes. She preferred fighting with basic spells and mastering them first, then using higher level spells which typically used more power, caused more damaged or took longer to cast. She had the power to knock out most of those spells and with experience she could get the casting to be instinctive, but for now she was happy with her foundation being strong.

"How was the Quidditch match yesterday?" Sirius asked, grabbing a drink as they took a brief break.

"We won." Aileen answered.

"Yes, by how much? How long was the game? Anything interesting happen?" Sirius asked excitedly. "Come on, let me live vicariously."

"Game lasted thirty minutes. The Ravenclaw's chasers have very good teamwork which caused our team issues. We spent a lot of time trying to break their formations, the girls did a good job in playing 'keep away' with the Quaffle and Fred and George refused to let them touch the bludgers." Aileen elaborated.

"What about you? What were you doing?" Sirius bounced slightly.

"I played fourth limb for a while." Aileen admitted. Fourth limb was when a seeker joined the chaser formation making it harder for the other team to predict where the ball was going to be passed. "The Ravenclaw seekers isn't very good at actually finding the snitch. She prefers to play tag with the opposing seeker and trust in her ability to out manoeuvre her opponent. Once we were seventy points up, I pulled away from the chasers and began looking for the snitch, which I located and caught quickly."

Aileen cursed her hope that this year would be quieter than any of her others. Between meeting with the curse breakers one weakened and the training with Triton on the following week, and her training with Sirius every Sunday or on an evening he could make it to the school; her Quidditch training which was scheduled between 17:00 and 19:00 on Tuesday and Thursday, and 19:30 and 21:00 on Monday and Friday; her lessons between 8:30 and 16:00, plus an hour and half worth of homework each day; going to the lake from 6:00 till 7:00 every morning and from 21:00 till 22:30 every night; plus trying to fit in her physical training and her work with the founders in whenever she could.

She barely had the time to stop and breath or spend time with her friends like she had been before the start of tournament. She got to spend time with the twins during Quidditch practise, and she worked on homework with her friends. But that was about it.

Two weeks after the meeting in the headmaster's office, Fielding's connections had come through and the material needed for the re-build had been delivered to Hogwarts grounds and Aileen had spent her entire day in the lake helping instead of going to lessons. It was four days until the first task and instead of training to face dragons (seriously, who the hell decided that seventeen years old could face against dragons on their own! If Charlie hadn't dropped hints about why he was in country she wouldn't have known what she would be facing, and nor would Cedric!), Aileen was trying to settle international affairs.

Dumbledore, Sirius and Fielding were currently fighting the Wizagnmont in regard to the statues. If they didn't give in soon, she was going to have to take her place and force the issue. At the minute the biggest opposition was the dark sector and Fudge. Aileen had decided not to get the man out of office with a vote of no-confidence until she could take her own seat for the summer session, but if the man continued to oppose something so politically sensitive, she was going to have no choice but to do something. Especially since the mer-chief had contacted the other villages and they had gotten up in arms, especially with the delay. And Triton and Poseidon had wanted to encourage the idea of them going to war, but Aileen begged them to let her handle it. She didn't want a war between the mer-people and the wizards when she was facing the looming problem of Voldemort and a second blood war.

Having spent eight hours in the village, and another two hours calming her angry relatives, Aileen had returned to the castle with a headache and no desire for social interaction. For this reason, she completely by-passed the Great Hall which was now serving dinner.

She didn't make it back to the dorm room.

Fred and George had clearly been waiting for her because they intercepted her on the fourth floor. They shared a silent look before picking Aileen up underneath her arms and carrying her away.

"What are you doing?" Aileen laughed, not fighting back. If anyone else had tried to man handle her like that she would have fought back, but she trusted the twins. She loved the fact that they weren't afraid to simple pick her up and carry her around – showing that they were physical strong from their years as beaters. Despite being so petit, Aileen weighed near nine stone due to her muscles.

"You've been running around,"

"Not stopping to take a breath,"

"For the last three weeks."

"We're kidnapping you." The boys finished together.

The morning of the first task dawned bright and early. Fred and George had kidnapped her again and they'd spent the evening in one of the old guest suits, which the boys had gotten the house-elves to prepare. They refused to let her do anything from five o'clock the night before until seven the next morning. Only relaxing and having fun.

After the last time they had kidnapped her, they'd made their relationship official. Sirius had been proud (dating pranksters!) and horrified (you're too young to have a boyfriend, let alone two!), when she had informed him, while Remus had settled for amusement at Sirius' bi-polar response.

Aileen woke at about five, they'd gone to bed at around one. They'd stayed up late talking, the twins telling her about some of their prank ideas which they hadn't made a reality yet, due to failed experiments. The things that they were planning were amazing and Aileen couldn't wait to see their plans become reality. Their owl order catalogue was already bringing in a consistent profit, but their current catalogue was limited to twenty items and the twins didn't like stagnating.

The bedroom the boys had arrange had only the one bed, so they had ended up sleeping together on top of the quilts. Aileen had been kept warm with one twin on either side. She'd thought that she'd have trouble falling asleep lying between two very male bodies but surrounded by the unique smell of the twins – caramel, broomstick care cleaner, ash and something un-nameable – she'd been able to relax and drift off. No unpleasant memories tried to rise during the night, and she got four hours of solid rest.

Despite having woken at five, Aileen spent an hour just lying between her twins, enjoying their warmth and the comfort of their presence. Finally, she decided she couldn't lie in bed any longer.

Carefully, she removed George's hand from her thigh and Fred's hand from her hip. Since she was sandwiched between the twins, Aileen lifted her weight on her left arm and leg so that she could bend over Fred without waking him. Just because she was up early didn't mean the twins had to be – they still had another hour before they really needed to be awake. Once her foot and hand were braced against the bed on the other side of Fred, she shifted all of her weight to that side, so she was no longer between the twins. Completing the manoeuvre, Aileen rolled and landed lightly on her feet next to the bed.

Considering what she would be facing later that day, Aileen decided to forgo her normal excise routine and instead decided to get ready and dress in preparation for the task. During her pursual of the rules she made sure to check what she was allowed to wear, what could be brought into the task and whether she needed to wear the uniform provided by the headmaster. Although it was traditional to wear a uniform that represented one's school, it was not compulsory. The clothes they wore could be made of protective material and have protective runes sown into them – as long as the runes were done by the champion's hand. Once she entered the arena, she was also allowed to cast protective spells upon her person, but these active enchantments couldn't be done before hand.

There was no restriction on the design or material of the clothes. Regarding to accessories, she was allowed her wand and one other weapon of non-magical origin, but nothing else could be brought into the arena prior to the task starting. Once the task had started, however, she was free to summon anything else she felt that she might need.

During the night, Dobby had gotten the robes she had prepared beforehand and had left them hanging on the back of the bathroom door for her once she had showered. She had decided to wear the same leather trousers and corset which she had worn to Sirius' trial. In the time between those events, she had added runes along the seams of the articles which made them more magic, fire, water, cold and tear resistant than the natural leather would otherwise be. She had contemplated using dragon leather as her outfit but had instead decided to simple use normal leather since she didn't want to antagonise the dragon she was about to face. In a few years, once she had confirmed she would grow no more (a handy little healer's spell), she would have these articles made out of basilisk hide which were naturally more resistant.

Under the corset (instead of the basic black shirt she had worn last time), in order to protect her shoulders, arms and neck, Aileen had settled on an Acromantula silk roll neck shirt which had even more protective runes sown into it – including a shielding rune which she had designed herself and would activate in a similar way to an intent-based ward. If she found herself about to be ingulfed in dragon fire, the rune scheme would activate and create a shield around her entire body. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to use this feature since it was very magically draining for her to maintain (a flaw she was still trying to work out before she patented the scheme and had it sold to the dragon reserves).

On her left forearm was the dagger which her father had gifted her, and on her right was her wand. Both of the braces adding further protection and support for her forearms. She also pulled on some leather fingerless gloves which would support her wrist and protect her palms from damage. Over the top of this, she pulled her battle robe. When she had worn it to court, she had worn it clasped at the shoulders in order to reveal the assemble she wore underneath. This time, she had it done up completely to hide what she was wearing. She would undo the robe before she entered the arena. Although it didn't restrict her movements to have it done up from neck to hip, she preferred to fight and move with it un-done since she could use the excess fabric to hide her movements.

Her feet were protected by some heave duty boots which came up to mid-calf. They had steal toes and grooved bottoms to help with grip encase the arena had unstable ground. The forming of the boot also meant she couldn't twist her ankle while moving – which was always a risk no matter how well trained one might be.

The last thing Aileen did to prepare herself was her hair. While at Hogwarts she kept her hair pulled back in a low braid, but having loose hair while going to face a dragon would be a fire hazard. Because of this, she tightly braided her hair to ensure she didn't miss anything, and then pulled it into a close bun at the back of her head. She used several 'invisible' clips to keep it in place.

The battle robe had a large crest on the back. Instead of using her school, house or family crests she had decided to use something that she felt represented who she was. So, there was a blue phoenix with its wings spread wide as though it was about to take off. Clutched in the phoenix's claws was a sword very similar to that of the sword of Gryffindor but instead of rubies in the pummel there was emeralds. On the left side of the phoenix was a torch, while on the right was a staff – these two items were angled so that their tips nearly touched just above the head of the phoenix. The image was held within the traditional shape of a Heater shield. Contained within the boarder of the shield were smaller images which one had to be close to make out. At the point was an open book; on the left was images of Atlantis, while on the right was a depiction of each of the monster's she had faced and defeated.

Feeling as ready as she could be, Aileen left the bathroom to find that the twins had woken up during the time she had spent in the bathroom.

"Morning, Raven." George greeted chipperly.

"Morning," Fred yawned.

Aileen had discovered during the summer holidays that George was a morning person while his brother most certainly was not. It always took the brasher of the two an hour and a cup of coffee to wake up all the way although he was typically able to disguise his tiredness after a shower or something to eat.

"Morning." Aileen greeted them with a smile. "Are you both going to get ready now, or would you prefer to eat something first? I'm going to use the kitchens to make something."

"You can cook?" George asked, lighting up. They knew that Aileen had helped their mother with breakfast several times during her stay with them, but they didn't know how much she actually helped or whether she would cook when she was without their mother.

"Yeah, it's a relaxing activity. I figured since I shouldn't duel or otherwise take part in training before the task starts, I need to do something else which I find relaxing and distracting to keep my attention." Aileen explained lightly.

"Let us wake up properly and get ready, then we'll join you for breakfast." George promised, shooting an amused look to his brother who was making his way to the bathroom like a zombie – clearly not quite registering their conversation. Normally he didn't get up till seven thirty, which means he was up nearly forty minutes before he was used to, and he had gone to bed quite late.

"I'll go and start getting everything ready." Aileen laughed, her eyes dancing in amusement as she watched Fred bump into the door frame leading to the bathroom. George rolled his eyes and went to guide his brother into the bathroom.

Edited: 12/01/2024