Chapter 36: Gryffindor’s Loss is Another’s Gain
It did not take a supreme mugwump to work out Gryffindor lost the moment Simon re-entered the halls of Hogwarts. Those in green were cheering loudly and carrying Rath on their shoulders, chanting all the way to the dungeons. Apparently a woman of her word, Rath slammed a bludger into Charlie the moment he was within reach of the snitch. Slytherin's seeker Terence Higgs grabbed the snitch right after.
Before Simon even had time to say his made-up excuse for missing the game to the boys, Fred grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Tonight, after midnight, WE FIGHT."
---
"Ugh why is this passageway so tight…is it for snakes?" griped Simon.
"To be fair, it likely is because it is a secret passageway to enter into the Slytherin common room." Fred said, "And these snakes are about to experience a nightmare!"
As they reach the end of the passageway, all the boys gave Simon a look.
*"Raze, it's showtime."*
The occamy slithered out of Simon's robes, turned extremely small before flying out to scout the area.
*"Coast is clear. There is nobody in the third-year boys' bathroom. Everyone is still busy with the party raging in the common room."*
Simon nodded and all four boys came out of a hole behind the painting of fruits hanging in the bathroom. They had all transfigured their robes to resemble Slytherin ones and used potions to change their hair colours. The Weasley twins no longer sported their signature red hair but the raven-black hair which appeared to be strangely common among the Slytherin pure-blood circles. They also each wore glasses that made their eyes look a little different. Simon now had dark brown hair and Cedric was blonde. They had all considered maybe using polyjuice potions but since the goal was a quick in-and-out kind of mission, it seemed riskier to be an actual known Slytherin and end up being dragged into conversations and activities where they needed to stay in character.
The plan was simple. Get to the top of the stairs and each of them were in charge of casting a separate spell. Together, the four series of spells should somewhat flood the floors of the Slytherin common room, while providing mist and splashes of water, all adding onto the illusion that the large window in their common room had cracked, bringing in water from the lake. The illusion of the crack was made to resemble the shape of Gryffindor's lion crest. As soon as the deed was done, they would escape to the bathroom during the confusion and return to the hallways like nothing had happened.
With all the festivities going on, the boys managed to get to the top of the stairs from the third-year boys' bathroom in no time.
"Ready?"
"Yes…" replied Cedric taking a deep breath.
The boys all casted the spells with hushed voices and watched closely to see them begin to take effect. While things still looked relatively clear from their standpoint, a mist had begun building in the Slytherin common room and they could hear comments about the dampness of the floor.
"Okay, time to head out boys," Simon said, turning his heels to head back towards the third-year bathroom.
"OW!"
Suddenly Fred collapsed to the ground, his legs moving like they were made of jelly and he began to roll down the stairs.
*"Impendimente!"* Simon muttered to slow down the fall of Fred but it was too late. He had already crashed into some Slytherin student walking up the stairs and had made his presence known.
"Aw shucks," George mumbled, noticing his legs going limp too.
Thankfully, Cedric noticed this fast enough to quickly cast a full body-bind curse on George and propped him up from falling. They turned to look at Fred who shot them a pleading look that screamed "You guys leave, NOW!"
"I will explain this all later," Simon said, pulling out a small box which he enlarged into a suitcase. He pushed the petrified George into it and slammed it shut, before dragging Cedric away with him.
---
"It seems like we have an imposter in our midst," Phoebe announced as everyone in the Slytherin common room looked at the boy who just fell down the stairs, "who was casting spells at the top of the stairs."
"Is this the reasons for the flooding and the mist?" Prefect Snyde asked, her mouth thinning with displeasure, *"Revelio."*
Fred groaned as his hair turned back to its distinctive ginger tone and the collar of his robes turned red. "Weasley. As expected, the Gryffindors would do something on April Fools the moment we win the quidditch match. But really, just one first year?"
"Yeah, yeah, ...it's just me. Surprised by what a genius I am?" Fred laughed smugly, gesturing to the flooding, the mist and the lion-shaped crack on the window showing a view of the Great Lake.
Phoebe bit her lip. She and Row saw three other figures at the top of the stairs. It did not take a genius to work out who those other three were – although she was quite impressed Simon and especially Cedric decided to join in. However, she noticed the look in Fred's eyes and decided to run with it. She was still their friend.
"Row and I noticed some ingredients for hair colour changing potions missing from the potions classroom after the Gryffindors had class before us. So, when we saw a boy who we did not recognise acting suspiciously at the top of the stairs, we went to take a better look," Phoebe explained, "Nobody else was there and we casted a jelly leg curse as soon as we saw what he was doing."
"Very observant of you two. I will make sure Professor Snape hears of what you did to help our house," Prefect Snyde noted, then turning her attention to Fred, "You there, come with me to Professor Snape's office. NOW."
---
"How did you even anticipate our cunning plan?"
George looked at Phoebe and Row during a study session a few days after in an empty classroom.
"We have our ways," Row smirked, a little too self-contentedly for George's liking. He swore he would find out how the girls knew they were planning something beforehand. (Once again, Ginny sneezed loudly in the Burrow.)
"At least Fred is now getting detention with Professor Flitwick and not Professor Snape, after it became clear the spells used were those Ravenclaw students developed for an intra-house Halloween performance with the help of Professor Flitwick," Phoebe added, giving George and Simon a knowing look, "So while Fred lost a bunch of house points after being shouted at by Professor Snape, at least he got a lighter detention when Professor Flitwick stepped up for his 'mistake of letting such spells fall in the wrong hands.'"
The whole school knew about the failed prank within a day of its occurrence. Not only because the Slytherins smugly told everyone they foiled a Gryffindor plan to prank them but also because Molly Weasley sent an extremely loud howler that everyone in the Great Hall could clearly hear the next day. While some praised Fred for his bravery in trying to prank the whole Slytherin house as a first-year and others called him dumb, more observant members of the Hogwarts community were sure George was in on the plan too, to have provided the spells that were apparently Ravenclaw intra-house creations. However, such speculation was mostly ignored by those within the Ravenclaw house – there was no reason to punish George who had smartly evaded punishment and did not lose any points from their house. Also, there was certainly a little bit of pride within the Ravenclaw house knowing that members of the famous prankster house thought the spells created by the supposed boring bookworms were worthy for a major prank against their arch-rivals.
Fred groaned at being reminded he still had multiple detentions to attend. "If we reacted faster, Simon could have tossed me into his suitcase too!"
"Yeah, very uncool of you not to have told us you have an expandable suitcase, Simon!" George added. Thankfully, Lord Lian was visiting another one of his portraits at the time and did not suffer from a heart attack when a redhead tumbled down the stairs into the study.
"Because it is literally filled with books and is actually very uncool?" Simon responded, "Anyways, how on earth did you two hit Fred and George with curses when you were nowhere near us without accidentally hitting some of your fellow housemates? That made NO SENSE."
Phoebe's lips curled up slightly as she fished out two identical dolls from her moleskin poach, with slightly different Hogwarts robes.
"I KNEW IT. Of course, you were really doing voodoo on us all year!" Fred grimaced, "You snakes with your curses!"
"Hey, Phoebe got them made just to stop you after we found out about your plans to prank the Slytherins – since we were not super sure at the time what exact prank you guys were going to pull," Row explained, "Also, we really did not expect Simon as well as Cedric of all people to participate, sooo these are the only two dolls we got."
The four boys looked at the two girls suspiciously even after their reassurances that there were no other dolls.
---
"Thanks," Cedric said.
"For what?" Fred asked as they were leaving the classroom together.
"For not outing the rest of us. You could have easily done that and probably lost fewer house points since more people were to blame," Cedric mumbled.
"Oh it's nothing. We are friends after all!" the redhead said good-naturedly.
Cedric slowly smiled at Fred's words. He often felt like he was the butt of the jokes in the friend group for being such a good kid, with Fred often instigating these jokes. Sometimes he thought Fred probably secretly disliked him. His mother had drilled it into his mind that there would be lots of people who would despise him in the shadows, given his 'talents and future prospects'.
He knew not to fully trust what his mother had said when he started hanging out with his current friends. Phoebe did not follow some reading list like he did from his parents and honestly knew a lot more than he did just from reading what she enjoyed, which ranged from politics to even the biography of famous quidditch coaches. Simon was simply brilliant, hungry to learn all kinds of magic from the East and West, and trying to make something new out of it. Fred and George loved pranks and fun, but they were also very intelligent in the way they went about it, even creating new prank items of their own at home at such a young age.
And now he was trying to unlearn another thing his mother had taught him. To start trusting his friends more, even those who might tease him a little too often.