Prankster Princess

“That…was…brilliant!” Fred collapsed in the hidden passage, wheezing from his laughter. The twins had barely been able to run from the scene where we had ambushed the Slytherin in my year who had decided to taunt me about what Umbridge had been saying. The fool just had to say something when the twins were with me, so they planned his ambush.

It was simple, and a kind of low, under-handed tactic. Perhaps it overstepped the bounds of harmless trickery by just a bit, since he was stuffed in a broom cupboard looking much more like a giant squid than a human being. He’d sprouted about seventeen tentacles, five of them from his face, and he had a whole bunch of the boils from Fred and George’s work-in-progress skiving snackbox candies. He was also haunted by a horde of bat bogeys, courtesy of the fourth year with fiery red hair who was clinging to Fred on the floor, laughing.

Ginny Weasley. She’d wanted in on it the moment she heard they were planning it because apparently she’d been with her friends behind us when the encounter had happened. And for a fourth year, that was one hell of a bat bogey hex.

“Nice hex at the end, George,” I managed to force out the entire sentence before coughing at the end and starting to laugh again. “I didn’t know that my jelly legs with your extra arms would cause tentacles! Especially since there’s another spell for that…”

“Ha…ha,” George wheezed, much like his brother as he sagged against the wall for support. He threw an arm around my shoulders, “we make quite…a team, eh?”

I hugged him around the waist with one arm and laughed, “Yup!”

It was a good five minutes before we could calm down enough to drag Fred and Ginny back to their feet and all head off toward the Great Hall. Fred and I split away to the right and George and Ginny took the left.

See, if the Slytherin had already been found, separating the twins diverts a bit of the blame. Well, maybe. That’s what we were hoping for.

“You and George make a hell of a team when you put your minds to it,” Fred said conversationally, slinging his arm across my shoulders. It didn’t quite bring the comfort that his twin’s arm would have, but I didn’t pay any attention to that. “You know that? He told me about all the little things you do while I’m off with Angie and lemme tell ya, I wish I was in on some of it.”

“You two are still the duo to watch out for,” I retorted, elbowing him in the ribs. “Quite the pair, you are, from what you guys tell me of things you’ve done before.”

“Well then, now that you’re here we might just have to become the trio to watch out for, yeah?”

We laughed, and I felt warm inside. I was comforted, no doubt, by the fact that at least two people in the world were happy that I was alive and in their lives.

“Then what’s our next big plan, Boss?” I asked jokingly shrugging his arm off and slipping ahead to walk backwards a few paces in front of him. “We could rescue a prisoner from the dungeons, but I don’t guess that’s what we use them for…unless, of course, we’re talking about potions classes, ‘cause those sure are torture…”

Fred snorted and then said, “Can you please stop doing that? It’s making me nervous.”

“Doing what?” I asked, glancing behind me to make sure I was still a good ways away from the stairs.

“That walking backwards thing. You’re gonna forget to look and end up falling down the stairs and then George will kill me!” He threw his hands up, half in a playful manner.

“Why would he do that?” I quirked an eyebrow, continuing to walk backwards just to mess with the twin I hardly got to spend time with.

“Why would who do what?” he asked, glancing around me to make sure I wasn’t about to fall down the stairs or run into something.

“You said that if I ended up falling down the stairs that George would kill you. Although if you did let me fall down the stairs and something happened, I’d come and kill you myself, so you’d better not die when he kills you.”

“That doesn’t make sense!” Fred laughed, shaking his head, then sobered quickly and asked, “Now could you please stop? The stairs are getting closer and closer and it’s making me nervous.”

I rolled my eyes, but did as he asked, twirling back and keeping in step with him without missing a beat.

“Happy now, Mum?” I asked him teasingly.

“Very, dear,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “Now if you don’t mind, you need to keep your mouth closed when you chew, and you need to stop spitting when you’re outside because that’s just unladylike! And for heaven’s sake, Vera dear, don’t sit with your legs open like a man! It’s very unbecoming of you!”

“Fred!” I shoved him and he stumbled against the wall, but we were both laughing at his
imitation of a nitpicking mother. “Shove it,” I chuckled.
“Okay,” he shrugged, and this time I stumbled a few steps from his light push.

“I didn’t say to push me,” I snorted.

“You didn’t specify what I was supposed to shove.”

I laughed again and turned and walked backwards some more just to spite him again.

“Hey! No, no, no, we are not doing this again, Vera!” he cried, taking a step back. “We’re even closer to the stairs than we were last time and I’m not much in the mood for dying because I got killed by George and then getting brought back so the ghost you can kill me, too!”

“There is no getting brought back unless you’re a ghost, and then I can’t kill you!” I sighed, then pretended to think and just as he was about to open his mouth, I held up my finger and cried, “I’ve got it! You’ll just be a ghost, you see, because I don’t think you’re quite mean enough to be a poltergeist, and we all know Peeves is barely a poltergeist, just a little trickster, really. So if you’re a ghost, I’ll be a poltergeist and I’ll torment you forever! Bwahahaha!”

I did my laugh in my best evil voice. Fred shuddered, but I could tell he was holding back a laugh. I glanced behind me and did another about-face because the stairs were less than two steps away.

“Shit! The stairs were right there!” Fred cried when I had fallen back beside him. “Right there! I would have died for sure if you didn’t look behind you and turn around. Ginny would kill me too, now that I think on it. Shoot, Mum would have my head! I dunno what Dad would do, but I kind of don’t want to know. And did I mention that George would bloody murder me?”

“You’ve said that last one about a dozen times,” I exaggerated, rolling my eyes at him. “Now let’s hurry on down the steps so we can get food. I’m starving after all of this!”

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” Fred messed up my hair before I could fend him off. “We’ll be there in a sec.”

“Not the hair!” I whined, and it was only half fake. I actually had my unruly red hair the way I liked it for once, and he just had to mess it up. He just laughed at me, and we entered the already noisy Great Hall.

“George and Ginny aren’t here yet,” Fred mused, using his height to his advantage to look over at the Gryffindor table. By no means am I short, but there were still a few too many people between our table and us for me to see. “Of course, they did go the longer way around.”

“But George walks faster than you do,” I said before I could think about it. “At least, when you two are apart. When you two are together, sometimes you walk at his speed and sometimes at yours. You are more…leisurely, I guess. George acts like he has somewhere to be and wants to get there soon.”

Fred raised a brow and looked at me. “You pay attention to how we walk?”

“No!” I said, my ears heating up. “It’s just, since I’ve got shorter legs than you, I notice the changes how fast I walk when I’m with both of you or just one of you. It’s not that I pay attention, it’s that I can’t help but notice.”

“Sure it is,” Fred kind of smirked as we split the table and walked up opposite sides.

“You don’t believe me,” I stated, “Fred Weasley, I’m more truthful than you are!”

“That’s not saying much then, is it?” he retorted as we neared the middle of the table, where there were empty spaces on both sides and where Fred could sit by Angelina on his side. “I’ve fibbed to my grandmother before, Vera, which is not a very honorable thing to do.”

“We all have done that,” I rolled my eyes at him. “Lying is something we pick up as a child. One of the many reasons I have little hope for the future of the human race.”

“Hey!” A fifth year said to me indignantly. “That’s not nice!”

“And?” I asked her, shrugging. “It’s true.” I turned my attention back to Fred and then said, “Haven’t you noticed that you two walk at different speeds? You’re like, glued together at the hip a lot of the time.”

“Well, like you said, when we’re together we adjust to each other’s speed, or some such nonsense,” he said in a bored manner. “So obviously, I don’t notice because we usually have more interesting conversations than ‘Hello, George, I see you’re walking fast today.’ ‘Why, no, Fred, this is how I normally walk. But you’re walking slow today.’ ‘On the contrary, George, I walk this way every day.’ ‘Do you really?’ ‘I really do.’ ‘But Fred, that must be a lie!’ ‘George, I swear it’s the truth.’”

I snorted into my potatoes at the high pitched voice he was using for his twin.

“Since when do I sound like a house elf on helium? And why are we talking about walking…?”

I coughed and started laughing at George’s voice behind me as he sat beside me and Ginny sat between he and her friend. Fred nearly fell backwards off the bench and would have if it weren’t for Angelina grabbing him and pulling him forward. His elbow fell in his potatoes, but he was laughing too hard to bother with taking it out just yet. Angelina rolled her eyes, but she had a grin on her face. Katie Bell beside her was laughing, covering her mouth to keep it muffled.

While we laughed, George calmly filled his plate and finally Fred choked out, “Ask Vera!”

“Vera?”

“Just ask Fred later,” I snorted, trying to calm down enough to eat my food and starting to laugh when Fred noticed where his elbow was. George sighed and started eating, but I knew that wasn’t the end.

He asked four more times throughout dinner.

“Gaah!” Fred finally said the last time. “When we got here, I said that you weren’t here yet, and then I said something about how you did take the longer way, and then Vera said something about how we walk differently when we’re separated and that you walk faster than I do. Then I teased her by saying that she paid attention to how we walk, and then she came back with how she has shorter legs and so she just notices when she’s walking a different speed because she’s walking with a different twin. Then she asked if I ever noticed it, and I told her no, we usually have better things to talk about than how fast we walk. That’s where you came in.”

I snorted and told him, “Fred, you’re not going to win any awards for storytelling.”

“It’s my brother,” Fred rolled his eyes, “I don’t have to turn it into some epic for him.”

“Gee, way to make me feel loved,” George snorted. “That was a very random thing to notice, Vera.”

“I can’t help it!” I retorted defensively. “It’s the curse of the short people.”

“You’re not that short,” Katie chipped in. “You’re about as tall as I am. And I was taller than my last boyfriend back home.”

Angelina and I laughed at that, and I said, “I know the feeling. It only lasted about two days because he was a real dick and a half, but my only boyfriend came up to my nose.”

“And you laughed at me!” Katie snorted. “My last one was up to at least eye level.”

The girls laughed for a minute about that, and Fred and George just looked at us.

“So, Vera,” Fred said, leaning across the table conspiratorially, “You never told us about this boyfriend of yours.”

“It was two days. Unimportant.” I shrugged. “Anyway…”

I changed the subject to Quidditch and they fell in with the topic, albeit reluctantly, and I could breathe easier for a while.

...

Why did I bring him up?

It was because of him that the Death Eaters knew where to find us.