Sunday was not a good day, it was still raining outside the castle.
At seven in the morning, it was dawn, and Albert, freshly washed, covered his yawn and was brought to the Great Hall for dinner by his excited housemates.
"I really don't get it, what's so exciting about this?" Albert said as he broke free of his twin's hand and straightened his robes.
"It's Hogsmeade Village, the most fun place in all of Britain." Lee Jordan quipped.
"All of Britain?" Albert sighed softly, feeling like his mind wasn't on the same channel as the three next to him.
On their way to the castle hall, the twins practised their illumination charm as they walked. However, unluckily, they were bumped into by Filch.
Caught by Filch, George was taken to the keeper's office.
Filch cheerfully took a large roll of parchment from his desk drawer and spread it out in front of him, then picked up his long black quill pen and dipped it into his ink bottle:
Name: George Weasley.
Offence: Indiscriminate use of a spell in a corridor
Punishment Suggestion:
"Cough, I'm only using the illumination charm because of dim vision, you know, it's early in the morning, the corridor..." George said with his eyes open and a bit of a torch in the corridor he had just passed.
"...washing night pots for the school hospital." Filch swept a glance at George, a smile full of malice at the corners of his mouth, "It just so happens that the night pots at the school hospital haven't been washed for a summer."
George's expression froze.
"You can go now, and you better not let me see you using magic in the corridor." Filch flashed a victorious grin and shooed George out of the Caretaker's office.
"Pfft!" Albert couldn't help but laugh after hearing George's words, he reached out and patted George's shoulder gently, comforting, "Don't worry, I can teach you a very simple scouring charm, cleaning the night jars and whatnot, it'll be solved in no time. Besides, Filch can only make suggestions for punishments; he in fact can't punish you directly."
"That guy's a pain in the arse." George scanned the door to Filch's office, looking in such a dreadful mood; no one wanted to go and clean the night pots.
"Don't be depressed, I'll buy you a Butterbeer later." Albert couldn't help but laugh again and hastily changed the subject, "Right, tell us what you just saw in Filch's office."
"See what? There were a lot of drawers in there and handcuffs and shackles and stuff on the wall behind the desk." George grumbled as he thought back carefully, "That old guy, no, the old pervert must have some kind of weird fetish."
In fact, Albert thought that 'good-for-nothing' might be more appropriate for Filch; after all, he's a squib.
However, he didn't say this thought out loud, after all, it wasn't good to insult someone like that.
"And?" Albert asked again, "He must have confiscated a lot of stuff!"
"Yes, I did see a filing cabinet drawer that said, confiscated materials, highly dangerous."
"I reckon he keeps all the confiscated items in there." Fred's eyes glowed with interest in the contents of the drawer.
"If it was really highly dangerous, it wouldn't have been put in a place like that." Albert remembered a good thing, the Marauder's Map, should be in there.
"Yeah, that's what we thought." The twins looked at each other and couldn't help but laugh.
"You guys shouldn't be thinking... don't get caught breaking in." Albert warned, "Otherwise, you'll be in trouble for sure."
The twins protested simultaneously, "That's slander, how could we do anything like that?"
Britain always had the richest breakfasts, Albert got himself a bowl of oatmeal with milk and a fried egg with two slices of savoury meat and two slices of bread, and a small sandwich with vegetable salad and sausage on his plate.
"Hi, good morning!" A boy greeted the twins as he passed by.
"I think I remember you from Hufflepuff..." Lee Jordan couldn't remember the boy's name for a moment and looked to Albert for help.
"Cedric Diggory." The boy introduced himself.
"Hello Cedric." The twins greeted their neighbour, "I didn't think you'd get into Hufflepuff."
"I don't think Hufflepuff is bad." Cedric didn't like it when people said bad things about Hufflepuff.
"We didn't say it was bad."
"Just that Gryffindor is better."
Responded the Weasley Twins in turns.
"It's been a long time, Albert." Another came over and greeted Albert, "I didn't think you'd get into Gryffindor, it was quite a shock."
"Long time no see, Gabriel." Albert smiled and greeted his pen pal.
"You know each other?" Cedric Diggory asked suspiciously, he was on pretty good terms with his senior.
"Of course we know each other, we met over the summer." Gabriel gave Diggory a mysterious smile, "The one I told you about…"
Cedric Diggory shot Albert a very surprised look, he'd heard Gabriel mention of him, he'd just never mentioned the man's name.
After Gabriel walked away, the twins looked at each other and said in unison, "It can't be..."
"What is it?" Lee Jordan hadn't responded.
The twins looked at each other and said, "That thing!"
"Which thing?" The guy still hadn't reacted.
"Cough, just remember to keep it a secret!" Albert said with a light cough, or you won't get a Christmas present this winter holiday.
"We'll keep it a secret." The twins said meaningfully, extending their index fingers and crossing them over their mouths to show that they would keep it a strict secret.
"Hey, don't exclude me, you jerks." Lee Jordan was upset, feeling excluded from the clique.
"Remember that thing in, newspaper, we talked about on the train when we came to Hogwarts?" Fred reminded.
"Fifty galleons." George reminded.
"Wow, that thing!" Lee Jordan instantly understood what was going on, "How did you do that in the first place..."
"I don't want to make it so the whole school knows about it." Albert put up a finger to his mouth to shut the three up.
"Okay, but you're awesome!" The Weasley Brothers still admired Albert's tactics, if only they could make 25 galleons easily too.
"No wonder you were willing to gamble all the galleons you got." Lee Jordan said sourly.
"It's not like you're bound to lose." Albert bristled and rebuked, "Do you know why wands made of red cedar wood are popular with Wizards?"
"It brings luck?" George said uncertainly.
"Right." Albert continued the rebuke, "At the time, I had a hunch that I might make a fortune betting on it, so I did."