Dreams Are Falling Short

"What’s the matter?” I asked, catching up with Harry and Ron halfway across the common room as we all headed towards breakfast. “You look absolutely –“

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Hermione cut in. She was staring at the common-room notice-board, where a large new sign had been put up.

‘GALLONS OF GALLEONS!
Pocket money failing to keep pace with your outgoings?
Like to earn a little extra gold?
Contact Fred, George and Corey Weasley, Gryffindor common room,
for simple, part-time, virtually painless jobs.
(We regret that all work is undertaken at applicant’s own risk.)’

“Oh, they put my name on it, how considerate,” I said, reading the sign with a shrug.

“”They are the limit,” said Hermione grimly, taking down the sign, which the Twins had pinned up over a poster giving dates of the first Hogsmeade weekend, which was to be in October. She shoved the piece of paper my way. “We’ll have to talk to them, Ron.”

Ron looked positively alarmed.

“Why?”

“Because we’re prefects!” said Hermione, as we climbed out through the portrait hole. “It’s up to us to stop this kind of thing!”

Ron looked as me, “Could you talk to them for us?” I could tell from his glum expression that the prospect of stopping Fred and George doing exactly what they liked was not one he found inviting.
“I doubt they’d listen,” I said, “and I doubt I’d get around to actually telling them to stop doing what they love.”

“Anyway, what’s up, Harry?” Hermione continued, as we walked down the flight of stairs lined with portraits of old witches and wizards, all of whom ignored us, being engrossed in their own conversation. “You look really angry about something.”

“Seamus reckons Harry’s lying about You-Know-Who,” said Ron succinctly, when Harry didn’t respond.

“Yes, Lavender thinks so too,” said Hermione gloomily.

“Been having a nice little chat with her about whether or not I’m lying, attention-seeking prat, have you?” Harry said loudly.

“No,” I said calmly. “We told her to keep her big fat mouth shut about you, actually. And it would be quite nice if you stopped jumping down our throats, Harry, because in case you haven’t noticed, Ron, Hermione and I are on your side.”

There was a short pause.

“Sorry,” said Harry in a low voice.

“That’s quite all right,” said Hermione with dignity. Then she shook her head. “Don’t you remember what Dumbledore said at the last end-of-term feast?”

Harry, Ron and I all looked at her blankly and Hermione sighed again.

“About You-Know-Who. He said his ‘gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust –‘“

“How do you remember stuff like that?” asked Ron, looking at her in admiration.
“I listen, Ron,” said Hermione, with a touch of asperity.

“So do I, but I still couldn’t tell you exactly what –“

‘The point,” Hermione pressed on loudly, “is that this sort of thing is exactly what Dumbledore was talking about. You-Know-Who’s only been back two months and we’ve already started fighting among ourselves. And the Sorting Hat’s warning was the same; stand together, be united –“

“And Harry got it right last night,” retorted Ron. “If that means we’re supposed to get matey with the Slytherins – fat chance.”

I cringed remembering Malfoy.

“Well, I think it’s a pity we’re not trying for a bit of inter-house unity,” said Hermione crossly.

We had reached the foot of the marble staircase. A line of fourth-year Ravenclaws was crossing the Entrance Hall; they caught sight of Harry and hurried to form a tighter group, as though frightened he might attack stranglers.

“Yeah, we really ought to be trying to make friends with people like that,” I said sarcastically.

We followed the Ravenclaws into the Great Hall.

“Dumbledore didn’t even mention how long that Grubby-Plank woman’s staying,” I said as we made our way across to the Gryffindor table.

“Maybe...” said Hermione thoughtfully.

“What?” said both Harry and Ron together.

“Well... maybe he didn’t want to draw attention to Hagrid not being here.”

“What d’you mean, draw attention to it?” I said, half-laughing. “How could we not notice?”

Before Hermione could answer, a tall black girl with long braided hair had marched up to Harry and me.

“Hi, Angelina.”

“Hi,” she said briskly, “good summer?” And without waiting for an answer, “Listen, I’ve been made Gryffindor Quidditch Captain.”

“Nice one,” I said, grinning at her; I suspected Angelina’s pep talks might not be as long-winded as Oliver Wood’s had been, which could only be an improvement.

“Yeah, well, we need a new Keeper now Oliver’s left. Tryouts are on Friday at five-o’clock and I want the whole team there, all right? Then we can see how the new person’ll fit in.”

“OK,” said Harry and I.

Angelina smiled at us and departed.

“I’d forgotten Wood had left,” said Hermione vaguely as she sat down beside Ron and pulled a plate of toast towards her. “I suppose that will make quite a difference to the team?”

“I s’pose,” I said, taking the bench opposite next to Harry. “He was a good Keeper...”

“Still, it won’t hurt to have some new blood, will it?” said Ron.

With a whoosh and a clatter, hundreds of owls came soaring in through the upper windows. They desended al over the Hall, bringing letters and packages to their owners and showering the breakfasters with droplets of water, it was clearly raining hard outside. Calandra was nowhere in sight. Hermione, however, had to move her orange juice aside quickly to make way for a large damp barn owl bearing a sodden Daily Prophet in its beak.

“What are you still getting that for?” said Harry irritably. “I’m not bothering... load of rubbish.”

“It’s best to know what the enemy is saying,” said Hermione darkly, and she unfurled the newspaper and disappeared behind it, not emerging until Harry, Ron and I had finished eating.

“Nothing,” she said simply, rolling up the newspaper and laying it down by her plate. “Nothing about you or Dumbledore or anything.”

McGonagall was now moving along the table handing out timetables.

“Look at today!” Ron groaned. “History of Magic, double Potions, Divination and double Defence Against the Dark Arts... Binns, Snape, Trelawney and that Umbridge woman all in one day! I wish you and Fred and George’d hurry up and get those Skiving Snackboxes sorted...”

“Do mine ears deceive me?” said Fred, arriving with George and squeezing on to the bench on either side of me. “Hogwarts prefects surely don’t wish to skive off lessons?”

“Look what we’ve got today,” I said, rather grumpily, shoving my timetable under Fred’s nose.

“That’s the worst Monday I’ve ever seen,” said Ron.

“Fair point, little bro,” said Fred, scanning my column. “You can have a bit of Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you like.”

“Why’s it cheap?” said Ron suspiciously.

“Because you’ll keep bleeding till you shrivel up, we haven’t got an antidote yet,” I said, picking up a piece of bacon with my hands.

“Cheers,” said Ron moodily, “but I think I’ll take the lessons.”

“And speaking of your Skiving Snackboxes,” said Hermione, eyeing the three of us beadily, “you can’t advertise for testers on the Gryffindor noticeboard.”

“Says who?” said George, looking astonished.

“Says me,” she Hermione. “And Ron.”

“Leave me out of it,” said Ron hastily.

Hermione glared at him. Fred and George sniggered.

“You’ll be singing a different tune soon enough, Hermione,” said Fred, thickly buttering a crumpet. “You’re starting your fifth year, you’ll be begging us for a Snackbox before long.”

“And why would starting fifth year mean I want a Skiving Snackbox?” asked Hermione.

“Fifth year’s OWL year,” said George.

“So?”

“So you’ve got your exams coming up, haven’t you? They’ll be keeping your noses so hard to that grindstone they’ll be rubbed raw,” said Fred with satisfaction.

“Half our year was minor breakdowns coming up to OWLs,” said George happily. “Tears and tantrums... Partricia Stimpson kept coming over faint....”

“Kenneth Towler came out in boils, d’you remember?” said Fred reminiscently.

“That’s ‘cause you put Bulbadox powder in his pyjamas,” said George.

“Oh yeah,” said Fred grinning. “I’d forgotten... hard to keep track sometimes, isn’t it?”

“Talking about putting things where they don’t belong; why am I ‘Weasley’ on this?” I said, pulling out the sign.

“Well, it looked better to have it all as one,” George said. “And you’ll be a Weasley one day, anyway,” he added with a wink.

I gave him the biggest shove I could manage, which only caused him to laugh at me.

“What do you mean by that?” Ron said.

“Well, when Harry was at his hearing –“ George cut off when he saw Fred and I’s warning stares.

“What happened?” Harry asked, intrigued.

“Nothing. Anyway, it’s a nightmare of a year, the fifth,” said George. “If you care about exam results, anyway. Fred and I managed to keep our peckers up somehow.”

“Yeah... you got, what was it, three OWLs each?” said Ron.

“Yep,” said Fred unconcernedly. “But we feel our futures lie outside the world of academic achievement.”

“We seriously debated whether we were going to bother coming back for our seventh year,” said George brightly, “now that we’ve got –“

He broke off when Harry gave him a warning look, knowing he was about to mention the Triwizard winnings.

“- now that we’ve got our OWLs,” George said hastily. “I mean, do we really need NEWTs? But we didn’t think Mum could take us leaving school early, not on top of Percy turning out to be the world’s biggest prat.”

“We’re not going to waste our last year here, though,” said Fred, looking affectionately around the Great Hall. “We’re going to use it to do a bit of market research, find out exactly what the average Hogwarts student requires from a joke shop, carefully evaluate the results of our research, then produce products to fit the demand.”

“But where are you going to get the gold to start a joke shop?” Hermione asked sceptically. “You’re going to need all the ingredients and materials – and premises too, I suppose...”

“Ask us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies, Hermione,” said Fred. “C’mon, George, if we get there early we might be able to sell a few Extendable Ears before Herbology.”

The twins stood up, both ruffled my hair and walked away, each carrying a stack of toast.

“What did that mean?” said Hermione, looking at Harry and Ron, but mainly me. “’Ask us no questions...’ Does that mean they’ve already got some gold to start a joke shop? Corey?”

“You know, I’ve been wondering about that,” said Ron, his brow furrowed. “They bought me a new set of dress robes this summer and I couldn’t understand where they got the Galleons...”

“Don’t look at me –“

“D’you reckon it’s true this year’s going to be really tough? Because of the exams?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Bound to be, isn’t it? OWLs are really important, affect the jobs you can apply for and everything. We get career advice, too, later this year, Bill told us. So you can choose what NEWTs you want to do next year.”

“D’you know what you want to do after Hogwarts?” Harry asked us, as we left the Great Hall shortly after and set off towards our History of Magic classroom.

“Not really,” said Ron slowly. “Except ... well...”

He looked slightly sheepish.

“What?” I urged him.

“Well, it’d be cool to be an Auror,” said Ron in a off-hand voice.

“Yeah, it would,” said Harry fervently.

“But they’re, like, the elite,” said Ron. “You’ve got to be really good.”

“Well, I have the shop with the twins,” I said. “I don’t think I’d fancy being an Auror. What about you, Hermione?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I think I’d like to do something really worthwhile.”

“An Auror’s worthwhile!” said Harry.

“Yes, it is, but it’s not the only worthwhile thing,” said Hermione thoughtfully, “I mean, if I could take SPEW further...”