If You've Got the Nerve

“It’s to mum. No hurry, don’t worry. It’s only an update.” I ran two fingers gently over Nexus’s soft head. He hooted and nuzzled my hand. I smiled at him, gave him a treat, then urged him out the window of the Owlery. I watched him recede in the clear sky until he was gone from sight.

My thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice from below. I poked my head over the stone edge of the second floor and spotted an even more familiar mess of black hair.

“Hi, Harry!” I called down. He jumped and almost fell over the many debris scattered across the ground. He searched above him in alarm before spotting me and relaxing considerably.

“Calm down, mate.” I chuckled when I reached the bottom level where he stood. “Who’ve you been mailing?” I asked curiously. I was fully aware that Harry didn’t get along with his Muggle relatives. He shook his head as answer and I figured it wouldn’t hurt anyone to drop the subject. We both left the Owlery and headed back to the castle in the midst of a conversation concerning the last Transfiguration assignment.

“It’s not really that difficult if you’ve got the wand movements down,” I was saying as we pushed open the doors to the Great Hall.

“Yeah, well it’s not so easy. I mean, why’s it have to be so complicated?”

“Harry,” I rolled my eyes, “It’s only two swishes and a short flick. If you’d just practice the sequence – ”

“Look whose lost her way to the Ravenclaw table,” a familiar voice broke in.

“Ha, ha, very funny.” I turned to see Fred, George, and Lee approaching from across the hall. Harry smiled, said a quick goodbye, and then hurried towards his usual seat with Ron and Hermione.

George, who had been the one that had spoke, wore a smirk. “Y’know, if you two studied,” I waved a hand to indicate the twins, “You wouldn’t have to mock intelligence to make up for your grades.”

“Yes, we’re so very insecure about our marks,” Fred said in mock sorrow, “So very insecure. What ever will we do?” I rolled my eyes at the two and followed them to a seat at the far end of the Gryffindor table.



Over the next few weeks, work was piled on to us by every teacher. I also had a feeling that they were grading that work a tad less fairly than they should for fourth years – especially Snape. Their excuse? O.W.L.s. I found this highly unreasonable. We still had at least a year until our exams came round. Of course, all of Fred and George’s horror stories about the exams late at night weren’t helping either.

“And Lucy Levingthan.”

“Oh, Lucy. Dear, dear, Lucy.” I cringed as the twins started up another tale.

“Will you two shut it? You can torture me all next year if you want.”

“She went mad, didn’t she?” Lee jumped in, ignoring my words. I groaned. “Not you too,” he grinned at me.

“What’s that?” he asked, the grin suddenly vanishing from his face. There was a small crowd of students gathering around the bottom of the staircase where I could just catch the glint from a marvelous new sign. Fred and George suddenly burst with excitement, smacking their hands together in a high-five. The sign read plainly and clearly across the top:

TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT

It went on to give details about the arriving schools, what procedure for greeting was, and so on.

But the real mass excitement started on the morning of the scheduled arrival.

The castle was spotting clean, to the twin’s disappointment. They had exhausted their supply of dungbombs trying to mess with Filch’s head.

As the sun sank low on the horizon, and I settled back on the stone steps of the stairs leading to the entrance hall, I realized this was the first in a long while I was spending time with Fred and George. The two had been grumbling to themselves for weeks, not even bothering to tell me or even Lee what they were up to. I stood my distance, only involving myself when Ron decided he had a death wish and tried to interrupt them.

“Don’t they look like they’re having fun?” George whispered with a low laugh.

We were situated on the steps so that we had a pretty good view of the outside entrance. The front doors stood wide open. Fred sat on the step below George and I with his legs kicked out to take up another two steps below him.

I looked up from my bored task of twisting Fred's hair to watch the crowd of Hogwarts students with amusement. In the havoc that was organizing that group of students, the three of us had slipped away to watch the show and to stay warm as the two schools arrived. Lee, who really couldn’t contain his curiosity, had shot out from our hiding spot to stand among that crowd. I watched him now as he stood shivering on one of the top steps. Apparently, the warmth of the castle didn't spread out to wear he stood on tiptoes.

Fred now looked up at me through tired eyes. In his sleepy state, he didn’t seem to realize why I’d stopped messing with his hair. I smiled at him and continued to twist the red locks.

“Whatever you two are working on, it’s got him exhausted,” I whispered to George with the confidence that Fred would be too far off to hear. George glanced at his brother before brushing his own red hair from his face.

My eyes traveled slowly across Fred’s features. His eyes were closed lightly. There was a small upward turn to his lips that made a smile spread across my own features. The only imperfection that seemed to mark his face was the slightly dark tinge under his eyes that confirmed why he was so tired on the evening he’d been waiting for since the day we’d arrived at school.

George nudged me and pointed out towards to looming darkness outside. I passed the action regrettably to Fred knowing he’d be in a foul mood if I didn’t wake him from his slumber for the arrivals. He groaned but snapped wide awake when I pointed towards the entrance.

Out of the dark, I caught sight of something brilliant. Great horses were soaring straight towards the castle. Behind them, a giant shape soared along the horses’ decided path. A sound like thunder broke across the grounds as the enormous carriage landed and the horses pawed the ground anxiously.

“Woah…” George gawked at the woman that stepped out. Fred’s eyes were just as wide as his brother's. The woman easily matched Hagrid in size, maybe even surpassed it.

My attempts at hearing the conversation between Dumbledore and this woman were halted once George gave out a low whistle next to me. His eyes had landed on the group of students that had stepped out after their headmistress (because she was so obviously the head of this group). The crowd of students consisted of both boys and girls dressed in pale blue robes that didn't look at all warm. The boy’s gaze obviously had rested on the females of the group. My hand made contact with the back of his head.

“Ow!”

“You’re such a guy,” I muttered as his eyes still followed the girls through their entire trek in to the warmth of the building.

“I should hope so,” he replied without the least bit of attention on his own words.

“Bloody hell,” Fred had sat bolt upright, all sleep evaporated from his eyes. At first, I thought I’d pulled his hair on accident or he had snapped out of a dream. Then I heard George repeat his brother’s exclamation under his breath and my eyes traveled to a vaguely familiar figure.

My head cocked to the side, “Hey, isn’t that – ?”

The twins cut in at the same time, in the same ringing voices, “Viktor Krum.”